[FRIAM] career choices as combinatoric search

Mon Jan 20 12:21:28 EST 2020

Hi, Dave, 

AT LAST!  SOMETHING WE AGREE ABOUT!

I think you will read with pleasure the attached Letter to the American
Psychologist written in 1969 but not published until a few years later.  The
back story was that the temporary job I had at Swarthmore had run out, and
the job market had tightened and I was in danger of being SOOL, with a wife
and two young kids.  So I wrote a letter describing my proposed teaching
program and sent it to 52 colleges and universities around the country.  I
got two nibbles and one bite.  Whew.  After I got the job at Clark, I sent
the proposal to the AP as a "letter to the editor".  

I think it also explains why we both believe so fervently in FRIAM.  I
wonder if the same kind of argument could be made for a very special sort of
computer science program.  

Nick 

Nicholas Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology

Clark University

 <mailto:ThompNickSon2 at gmail.com> ThompNickSon2 at gmail.com

 <https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/>
https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/

From: Friam <friam-bounces at redfish.com> On Behalf Of Prof David West
Sent: Monday, January 20, 2020 3:00 AM
To: friam at redfish.com
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] career choices as combinatoric search

I have been trying to tell my students for decades that multi-disciplinary
teams are essential and that the lack of them is what significantly harms
software development. Multi-specialization teams, e.g. analysts,
programmers, testers, etc. are not multi-disciplinary. 

In the world of software, you can find this notion in the writings of
Constantine and Lockwood, 70s and 80s, Naur, 80s, Kay 90s, Beck 2000, and
more.

Moreover, to be an effective part of such teams each individual on the team
needs to be a "polymath." The business press and the design community have
been writing about this for decades. The design community actually does it,
but business is more lip service than actuality.

Buzzwords used: "T-shaped" individuals (breadth and depth), followed by
"pi-shaped" (two depth, one breadth), followed by "broken comb" (multiple
depths to various degrees with thick integrated breadth), followed by
"modern polymath." The whole "learning organization" fad of the 1990s is
also grounded in similar ideas.

Acquiring this breadth and depth of knowledge via the current educational
system - semesters/quarters, N-credit courses, etc. is effectively
impossible. Not to mention the disdain that every discipline has for every
other discipline, such that if you really do get a degree that is inter- or
multi-disciplinary, you are pretty much guaranteed you will never get a
professor's job in any of the component disciplines, despite most
universities erecting a liberal arts facade.

davew

On Sat, Jan 18, 2020, at 5:52 PM, Roger Critchlow wrote:

So, as if it weren't already hard enough to figure out what to learn to do,
where to do the learning, and where to go to practice it, here comes the
need to maximize your value according to the abilities of your potential
co-workers.

https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/5/12/eaax3370

via hackernews

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