I think you make some great points here. Personally, if you are actually working in an applied field my advice is to do some field research. For instance, I work on environmental economics issues. Most of the time I program and run statistical models, I tend to even forget the original purpose of my research. Until I actually visit the place I work on, see the polluted areas, see the homeless, ask what people living around the area think. It gives you a different perspective.
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I think you make some great points here. Personally, if you are actually working in an applied field my advice is to do some field research. For instance, I work on environmental economics issues. Most of the time I program and run statistical models, I tend to even forget the original purpose of my research. Until I actually visit the place I work on, see the polluted areas, see the homeless, ask what people living around the area think. It gives you a different perspective.
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I am not quite sure whether that chart is correct. I see a lot of majors missing. Besides, in the more quantitative graduate programs the “Verbal” section is not taken into account by the admission committees, let alone the analytical section. Subsequently, students of such majors have no incentive to perform well.
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I agree with the author in that we should see education in connection to societies needs and also take into account the historical perspective. Education is necessary and should adapt to serve the students, and consequentially, society.
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I agree with the author in that we should see education in connection to societies needs and also take into account the historical perspective. Education is necessary and should adapt to serve the students, and consequentially, society.
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I think we should also draw two distinctions when we talk about Multi-Tasking. First, it depends on the tasks. Writing poetry is not the same as working on an assembly line. Second, the allocation of time when we do multi-tasking. It does not necessarily mean that for two tasks, the allocation of time/effort should be 50%. It can be 75%-25%. This could also have a different effect on our productivity.
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I act sometimes the same way i.e. when I am home occasionally I have the TV open. I am not quite sure if this necessarily a bad thing in terms of productivity. For instance, what if we did not have this sort of “entertainment” or stimulus”. Would our productivity really increase? Perhaps this is the way our brain tells us “give me a break”.
I suppose if we had except on brain neurology they could give us some theories. Or perhaps, they will come up with answers in the future.
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Thank you for this quite informative post. The references are quite useful. I think multi-tasking also depends on the type of tasks we do. For instance, when I have to perform a mundane task, such as running identical codes on different data sets, I rather have the TV open simultaneously. Most of my attention is on the main task, but until the code is done running I can also entertain myself.
Well I guess I should add “Black Mirror” on my bucket list.
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Daniel Kahneman’s book is an excellent reference. Since I am not an expert on cognitive issues, I imagine that there is a figure with y axis having the “optimal outcome”, the x “pace” and a concave curve. I hope this makes sense. I guess I took too many Micro courses.
