Breadth and Depth

It struck me during lab meeting today that undergraduates have a hard time balancing breadth and depth.

On one hand, we are supposed to take several modules every semester spanning a great spectrum of specialities. But at the honours level, at least, textbooks are no longer fully sufficient.

On the other hand, we are required to be well acquainted with one area of research in the course of doing the FYP. It is not enough to read one paper to get some background knowledge to start off. We have to be intimately familiar with what has been done, what it all means, what we can do to move on from there. It's a little bit like postgrad already. Not to the same extent, but quite enough.

The thing is: postgrads devote all their time to understanding their field of research. That is all they do and it is what they are rightly suppposed to do.

But undergrads have to do that and we also have to read papers for our modules. We have to know more than a bit in breadth and more than a bit in depth.

It's between a rock and a hard place, really.

I need time.
And I need the brain capacity!
And then should I finally absorb enough, I need to able to execute.

Argh. Not simple life is.

And vast science is. Really.

But then it's good to learn new things. Exposure, exposure!