> I have to disagree: however humble they might be, someone on the projects I mentioned has to have a deep enough understanding to know how to handle the cornuc

> I have to disagree: however humble they might be, someone on the projects I mentioned has to have a deep enough understanding to know how to handle the cornucopia of problems that can derail it I agree with what you said, which is why I have a hard time understanding what exactly you disagree with. Are you saying that more experienced people tend to be less aware of their shortcomings? Or maybe we're taking humble to mean two different things? I'm using "humble" in the "not arrogant" sense, not the "feeling inferior" sense. I think you can be confident in your abilities while still being humble about them, and that's really what I meant by it when referring to the more experienced peer group. In fact, the most experienced people usually have an innate sense of confidence that allows them to avoid having to constantly tell people "I know what I'm doing". They don't have to tell people, because they can show it. That's the level of humbleness (or modesty may be a better word) that I was referring to. > Then I don't understand how this was supposed to reassure her; if I offered an explanation, I would test its implications against the rest of the scenario: That is generally the next step. You make observations, develop theories to explain the observations in a consistent manner, and then devise new tests to test those theories. This post was simply at the "developing a theory" step. > (I note with some irony that, for you claim to know general competence levels just after college is itself seemingly outside your knowns!) The irony is not lost on me. To be fair though, I didn't and still don't claim to "know" general competence levels, I just blogged my thoughts. Of course I could have littered my post with all sorts of qualifiers like "maybe", "perhaps", "sometimes", and "I think", but that doesn't make for effective writing. The post was not written or meant to be read in a vacuum. Context is important.