Old Masters and Young Geniuses: The Two Life Cycles of Artistic Creativity

I took his class in college and it is one of the few decisions I completely regret in life. The point he makes in the book is in fact very interesting (essentially, the lifepaths of creative individuals fall into two discernible categories: innovators, whose main contributions are early in the career and slowly fade, and those who slowly master a craft, whose most noteworthy contributions come later in life), and the techniques he marshals to study it in different context noteworthy, but it would have made for a great two week class. Instead, Galenson spent the entire time basically assigning everything he ever wrote -- which made the same point over, and over, and over again -- and constantly berated students who tried to respectfully dialogue with him. Sorry, didn't mean to hijack your post, but every mention I see of him just elicits this visceral reaction in me and I just needed to get it off my chest.

Old Masters and Young Geniuses: The Two Life Cycles of Artistic Creativity (by David Galenson) Influential to someone whose practices and path to success in engineering doesn't follow the normal pattern but is still valid. (At least it was influential to me.)