Society often celebrates those who seem to be really good at one thing. Whether it’s Stephen Curry having another stellar basketball season or Taylor Swift releasing another chart-topper, there is no doubt that success comes from being very dedicated to something specific over a long period of time. However, fully forming your life around one activity without time or energy for anything else could actually be a bad thing. After reading Range by David Brooks, I would like to share my thoughts on how you could become a better engineer and person by diversifying your interests.

Drawing Analogies

Have you ever tried something totally new and intuitively grasped it without much effort? Have you ever seen those people who can pick up any sport or instrument with ease? Whether consciously or subconsciously, we constantly draw analogies between our past experiences and our current challenges to help us solve them. Interestingly, past experiences could have seemingly nothing to do with the current situation and could still help you face it! Thus, a diverse set of past experiences gives you more tools in your figurative toolbox to solve problems in a wide variety of topics.

Expansive Networks

In college, it is really easy to pigeonhole yourself into a certain network of people. The most common tactic I see is joining organizations, hanging out with groups, and registering for classes composed of people who are primarily in your major. The benefit of diversifying your network, though, is that you end up meeting people who are completely different than you! Though this sounds obvious, it can also be really scary at first. However, as you begin to do it more and more, you begin to realize that you may be able to help solve someone else’s problems since they do not have the skillset you do. Similarly, you can get help on problems that require a skill set you do not yet have.

Finding New Interests

Though this is an extremely hot take, I think the idea behind the Entry-To-A-Major process is excellent. I mean, at 18 or 19 years old, how can you really know what you want to do for the rest of your life based on your very limited past experience? In the same way, in all the other things you do, how do you really know that there isn’t something else out there if you don’t try new activities? Though I don’t believe that you should try something for a week and then quit because it is “boring” or “difficult,” I also think that knowing when to quit and trying something new is incredibly powerful. Quitting can be a great thing if you use it to try something that you think will help you further reach your goals.