"While that's true, the orthogonal skills can sometimes make the real work easier. Knowing even a small amount of VBA could save you hours in Excel"<p>"""It is a very important lesson in rationality, that at any time, the Environment may suddenly ask you almost any question, which requires you to draw on 7 different fields of knowledge.  If you missed studying a single one of them, you may suffer arbitrarily large penalties up to and including capital punishment.  You can die for an answer you gave in 10 seconds, without realizing that a field of knowledge existed of which you were ignorant.<p>This is why there is a virtue of scholarship."""<p>- Good Ol' EY - <a href="http://lesswrong.com/lw/qx/timeless_identity/" rel="nofollow">http://lesswrong.com/lw/qx/timeless_identity/</a><p>This is the answer to the endless questions from my schooldays - "when are we ever going to use this?" and "will it be on the test?". If you know something you can recognise if you are in a situation where it is useful and benefit from knowing it (or choose not to use it). If you don't, you cannot recognise when you are in a situation it would be useful and will suffer arbitrary consequences from the lack of it, and won't even realise that there was a missed opportunity.