The One-Ton Rodent

There's an old cliche about people ignoring the "elephant in the room." Today, I find my mind thinking about people ignoring the one-ton rodent in the room. It seems that paleontologists have discovered the remains of such a one-ton beast in Ecuador. I'm sure that the two Uruguayan scientists who uncovered this critter, to which they gave the easily memorable Latin name Josephoartigasia monesi, are quite excited about their find, but I'm left wondering about a professional career that peaks with the discovery of a 2,000 pound gerbil. Is this, perhaps, taking specialization a bit far? Would you want to be introduced at parties as the person who discovered the world's biggest rodent?
But then I'm not a scientist. I spend hours of my time studying the intricacies of poets long dead and mostly forgotten, writers about whom most people don't care a bit.
Education, you see, tends to make specialists out of us. The literature types can't talk very effectively with the chemists who can't deal well with the psychologists who don't fathom the economists at all.
I'd like to suggest that undergraduates resist this inexorable tug of specialization. It will happen eventually. Eventually, you'll be forced to declare a major and start to think and talk in the specialized jargon of that discipline. Before long, you'll sound like Dilbert's boss or some other ridiculous creature. It'll happen, but you don't have to like it. I'd suggest that you fight the specialization impulse as long and as hard as you can. Enjoy a broad swath of what the world offers, from Byzantine art through atonal music to 2,000-pound rodents. It's a wonderful world; why shouldn't we enjoy as much of it as possible?