I have done many various things in my life, many with seemingly no connection to one another - from waitressing to coding to teaching English. I studied International Relations and Economics and German Studies. Sometimes I think I have a short attention span. Other times I realize I am a generalist. So I should be able to do anything, right? Well…

Being a generalist is great. You certainly have more job opportunities available if you can adapt to newer technologies. Learning something new is not daunting rather the next challenge. So what’s wrong with being a generalist? 

Fitting in. If you’re a generalist like myself, you can focus on a field like interface design, but only for so long before you’re bored and want to do something else. Or worse, you see where the pieces of the puzzle don’t fit as well as they should. And so you end up inadvertently butting into other people’s fields, be it front-end development or project management. This will happen no matter what. How does it work itself out? If you’re lucky, the team feeds off the hunger and energy of its members to listen and learn. It is not important who has the idea. It’s more important that they share a common goal and so they grow together. All is well with the world.

If you’re not so lucky, it’s time to make a decision.