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GRE Essay Specialisits Vs Generalists


pac_232 1 / 1  
Jun 16, 2011   #1
Good day everyone,

I'd really appreciate your feedback/suggestions for improvement on the following GRE general essay. The essay is a response to the following statement "In our time, specialists of all kinds are highly overrated. We need more generalists-people who can provide broad perspectives." Thank you very much for your help.

At this age of human development, many people wonder whether humans have improved to such an extent that being a specialist is no longer sufficient. Some people claim that society should change educational systems in order to produce generalists rather than specialists. However, the current state of training in industry and academia is trending towards producing more and more specialists which indicates that specialists are more valuable than generalists.

In the industry, most employees start their carrier by having approximately one year of internship (training). Usually, an employee is rotated in his company's divisions to gain experience and to be exposed to as many available jobs related to the employee discipline as possible. This helps the employee to decide what job he would like to advance in and ultimately specialize in. Therefore, although giving a general idea about available jobs is necessary for an employee to make up his mind about the job he loves, he has to specialize and continue with a single job in the end. This demonstrates that the industry usually encourage specializing in one discipline over having general knowledge about all disciplines. Had generalists been more beneficial to industry than specialists, it would have been the opposite way around.

Provided with an adequate management, specializing does not have to lead into narrowness and isolation. For example, looking at the big picture, if you have enough specialized indivisuals covering everything a project needs, the quality of a multi-disciplined project would be significantly higher than generalists working on the same project.

Another example that shows that specialists are more important than generalists is the system of academic institutions. Based on the work demands and needs of different countries, academic institutions are structured such that each student should decide what major, aka speciality, he is going to study. Some exceptional individuals may study more than one major, but those majors are often directly related to each other. Nevertheless, there is no student in the world who can possibly digest and assimilate all of the knowledge in any given discipline. As a result, specializing even further by pursuing a master and/or PHD degrees is an appealing option for most students.

To conclude, while the prospect of viewing the world through a broad perspective may seem more beneficial and attractive for some people, both the industry and academic institutions adopted specialization and proved that it is a better solution for up to date problems and challenges. Specialists have driven technology forward and taken a step ahead every year while generalists are still hard to find.
amrosca 4 / 130  
Jun 17, 2011   #2
Hei there! I know that GRE is a test, but I'm not sure what their expectations are.

In my opinion, your essay is really good. It's coherent and it puts both "specialists" and "generalists" into context. I imagine reading this in a news paper, since you seem to look at the matter from a rather neutral perspective; I can see you are for specialists, but you don't strongly defend their concepts. The reason I'm saying that is because I would have probably been more aggressive, to add a more personal touch to it.

Overall, great essay!!! It's not boring, it depicts the subject perfectly and it flows really well. Good job! ;D
EF_Kevin 8 / 13,321 129  
Jun 17, 2011   #3
However, the current state of training in industry and academia is trending towards producing more and more specialists which indicates that specialists are more valuable than generalists.

After this sentence, before you end the first paragraph, you should probably add a thesis statement that gives the main idea of the essay. What point will you be making? Make it at the end of this first paragraph.

:-)

In the industry, most employees start their carrier careers by having approximately one year of internship (training). --What industry? I don't think this is true for all industries.

Had generalists been more beneficial to industry than specialists, it would have been the opposite way around.---Oh! Very good point. I agree with you. And you know what else? A specialist IS a generalist. In order to be a specialist, you need the knowledge of a generalist. Well... mostly. I think one needs to be a generalist to some extent before being able to specialize.

Yes, I think we need the knowledge of both generalists and specialists.

Provided with an adequate management, specializing does not
The ending is great. The whole essay is great. My most important advice for you is to ADD A THESIS STATEMENT at the end of that first paragraph.
calvinhmw 9 / 21  
Jun 17, 2011   #4
Your essay is actually very great!

Some advice:

At this age of human development, many people wonder whether humans have improved reached to such an extent that being a specialist is no longer sufficient useful. Some people claim that the society should change educational systems in order to produce generalists rather than specialists. However, the current state of training in industry and academia is trending towards producingtends to produce more and more specialists which indicates that specialists are more valuable than generalists.

In the industry, most employees start their carriercareer by having approximately one year of internship (training). Usually, an employee is rotated in his company's divisions to gain experience and to be exposed to as many available discipline-related jobs related to the employee as possible. This helps the employee to decide what job he would like to advance indelve into and ultimately specialize in. Therefore, although giving a general idea about available jobs is necessary for an employee to make up his mind about thechoose a job he loves, he has to specialize and continue with a single job in the end. This demonstrates that the industry usually encourages specializing in one discipline over having general knowledge about all disciplines. Had generalists been more beneficial to industry than specialists, it would have been the opposite way around.

Provided with an adequate management, specializing does not have to lead into narrowness and isolation. For example, looking at the big picture, if you have enough specialized indivisuals covering everything a project needs, the quality of a multi-disciplined project would be significantly higher than generalists working on the same project. --better expand this paragraph

Another example that shows that specialists are more important than generalists is the system of academic institutions. Based on the work demands and needs of different countries, academic institutions are structured such that each student should decide what major or speciality he is going to study. Some exceptional individuals may study more than one major, but those majors are often directly related to each other. Nevertheless, there is no student in the world who can possibly digest and assimilate all of the knowledge in any given disciplines . As a result, specializing even further by pursuing a master and/or PHD degrees is an appealing option for most students.

To conclude, while the prospect of viewing the world through a broad perspective may seem more beneficial and attractive for some people, both the industry and academic institutions have adopted specialization and proved that it is a better solution for up to date problems and challenges. Specialists have driven technology forward and taken a step ahead every year while generalists are still hard to find.
OP pac_232 1 / 1  
Jun 18, 2011   #5
Thanks all for your valuable comments. I'll do my best to improve in the future.


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