A well-rounded man... a renaissance man... a man for all seasons. DaVinci comes to mind; so do Franklin and Jefferson. Great inventors. Great thinkers. Great men. Masters of everything they attempted. Historically significant.

Enter the specialized age of the 20th and 21st centuries. The well-rounded man becomes the jack of all trades and a master of none. All areas of study become acutely and intensely specialized. People don't pay you to know a little bit of everything; they pay you to know a lot about one thing.

Or so the counselors would tell me when they were advising me on my course-taking back at school a few years back.

"What do you want to be?" they'd ask.

"Everything!" I'd say. "I want to learn and do as much as I can."

"Well, pick one. What do you most want to do?"

"I'd like to write best-selling novels," I'd respond after some thought. It was only one of the many things I wanted to accomplish, but it was at the top of my list at the time.

"Okay," they'd conclude. "You should major in literature and writing."

"Ooh," I'd say. "How about if I do a double-major? Or maybe minor in--"

"No. You really should concentrate on one thing."

"But I'm also interested in getting into--"

"If you take on too much and spread yourself too thin, you won't be able to get very far."

"Oh." Long pause. "I see."

Flash forward to less than a week ago today. I'm now a graphic designer and webmaster for a company in California, and I'm working with code on a database-driven intranet site when I'm not working with graphic design and layout for print publications. Two people whose opinions I respect encouraged my attempts to continue educating myself on the back end part of web developing.

"Most 'techies' know very little about, and want nothing to do with, graphic design," one of them told me. "And most artists don't even want to think about the technical back end of things. Someone like you, with skills in both areas, can do very, very well in this industry."

The other person went on to enumerate my other skills in music, the arts, writing, marketing, business, training and standardization, etc. "As someone who used to be a hiring manager, I know. A person like you is invaluable."

Where the heck were these people when I was growing up?! My parents, my counselors, and my friends all said the complete opposite of what I'm being told now. Apparently there was somewhat of a stigma to "knowing a little about a lot" because every time I told an "adult" about wanting to be an actress, an artist, a singer, a writer, and so on and so forth, I'd get the usual lecture about deciding on one thing and studying it really well in school so that I can get a good head start on my career.

Can you imagine getting a PhD in basketweaving so that you can do nothing but weave baskets your entire life, and all because you had an interest in it during high school? Surely people have more than one interest, more than one skill. And even if they did start out with only one interest or one skill, surely they'd change as they grew older.

Just how did the positive phrase "well-rounded" become the negative "jack of all trades and a master of none"?

And just when did it all get back in voque again?