Good post!

Unfortunately, in many universities nowadays, I feel there is such a strong focus on teaching very specific skills. On the aggregate, our universities are creating technicians, higher education has become a feeder for very specific skills needed by large corporations. Fine, we all need to acquire skills in order to appear "worthy" to be hired by some company to make some money in order to pay bills, put food in our mouths, blah, blah, blah. Or do we?

My thought has always been that skills are essentially the application of very specific knowledge within a very specific subject area. If you instead focus on the bigger picture in life, develop a thirst for broad knowledge (then work it into more specific areas of knowledge) I think you are already ahead of the game in a sense. Once you have big picture view of how things work, what is important, what really matters in life, then you are in a better position to "own" your particular path in life instead of being forced to tread along the paths that have been worn down by the people who tread on the ground before you. Knowledge is flexible, adaptable, curious, historically-oriented, nuances, not rigid, and holds the possibility of creating new outcomes, new discoveries.

Having skills is great, don't get me wrong. With them you can complete the known task within the given boundaries of the present. With knowledge though, you have the ability to create new paradigms, explore new opportunities, create new structures and be the one who invents/develops the things for which new skills are required.