I think this depends on how exactly the big fish treat the small fish in the pond/ocean. For example, if you take a job where your colleagues are more skilled than you, which of the following scenarios is more likely?
a) You will have a lot of opportunity to learn from your colleagues: you will be able to watch them work, to see how they solve problems; if you make a mistake they will explain you what that was wrong and what you could have done instead. You will learn a lot, and a few years later you will be one of those experts.
b) You will be the at the bottom of the status ladder, and everyone will treat you accordingly. You will always get the worst work that everyone else wants to avoid (for a good reason), and also the worst tools because no one cares about you. Your more respected colleagues will pick any promissing projects first. A few years later you realize you are getting old and you were never allowed to touch anything remotely interesting.
I think both situations happen; and when the environment is abusive towards the lower-status people it is better to be the big fish in the small pond. Then use all the opportunity to learn, so you can later switch to a greater pond.
(Of course it would be better to find a supportive environment instead, but that is sometimes easier said than done.)
Exactly this. I am a big fish in a small pond. I have been seriously programming for about a year now and I am far and away the most technically skilled person at my (completely-non-technically-focused) business.
I have learned more in this past year than I did through all 4.5 years of college. I am given a tremendous amount of freedom in the approach I take to solving problems which allows me to constantly say to myself, "hey, the way I've been doing this before works...but I bet I can take an hour and learn a better way."
Initially I was writing ...
We looked at the cloudy night sky and thought it would be interesting to share the ways in which, in the past, we made mistakes we would have been able to overcome, if only we had been stronger as rationalists. The experience felt valuable and humbling. So why not do some more of it on Lesswrong?
An antithesis to the Bragging Thread, this is a thread to share where we made mistakes. Where we knew we could, but didn't. Where we felt we were wrong, but carried on anyway.
As with the recent group bragging thread, anything you've done wrong since the comet killed the dinosaurs is fair game, and if it happens to be a systematic mistake that over long periods of time systematically curtailed your potential, that others can try to learn avoiding, better.
This thread is an attempt to see if there are exceptions to the cached thought that life experience cannot be learned but has to be lived. Let's test this belief together!