One of the things I’ve been thinking a lot about lately is the fact that there are two main types of textbooks. There are reference textbooks, which are for people who are already versed in the subject area, typically academic researchers, professors, and the like. They tend to be large, contain massive amounts of information, and be unintelligible to everyone but their target audience. Then, there are expository textbooks, which are for people who actually want to learn things (aka me, a confused undergraduate student).

So I’ve been rereading this book called Range (by David Epstein), and I’ve come across some interesting ideas that didn’t really stick with me on my first reading. For example, one concept I’m finding intriguing is the idea of “match quality”, which is basically a measure of fit between a person and their job/occupation.

The idea presented in the book is essentially that improving match quality only comes through exploration – you don’t figure out who you are by locking yourself in a room and thinking about it, but by trying out different things.