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Less breadth more depth

Nature Reviews Chemistry volume 6, pages 444–445 (2022)Cite this article

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Chemistry degrees are often very broad. What might a degree look like if we covered fewer topics more deeply?

If you have ever been in a pub quiz team with a historian, you’ll know how specialized they are. “Not my period,” they shrug as they let you haggle over whether it was Queen Anne or one of the Georges. “I don’t do Europe,” they apologize as you try to remember literally any of the Medicis so you can guess which one was ‘the magnificent’. It is possible — even normal — to be a historian and know nothing about most of history.

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Fig. 1: The breadth and depth of topic coverage in a degree emphasize different relationships to knowledge for students.

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  1. University of Oxford, Physical and Theoretical Chemistry Laboratory, South Parks Road, Oxford, UK

    Michael O’Neill

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  1. Michael O’Neill
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Correspondence to Michael O’Neill.

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O’Neill, M. Less breadth more depth. Nat Rev Chem 6, 444–445 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41570-022-00402-9

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41570-022-00402-9

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