Somewhere in Astounding SF (just about the time it got re-neamed Analog) John Campbell wrote an editorial, and then Christopher Anvil turned it into a story. The idea was the young graduate just out of school comes into a situation that the book learning does not cover. . . Campbell divided the competencies in two parts: the license to practice, and the ability to do the job, and said the latter is only gained through experience. In music, I have no formal training, (does one music theory course taken in college count?) but have forty years practical experience playing the banjo, listening to friends, records, tapes, CDs, old-timers, and making music of my own. By now I think I have the ability to do the job-- and really enjoy playing backup with YOUNG fiddlers like Matt Brown, Jake Krack. .. (people who go to Clifftop will know those names) Professionally I have degrees in Chemistry and to reinforce Campbell's point, the most successful teams I have ever been on are ones in which I was working with a very practical engineer who knew just what could and could not be done in the plant while I had the theoretical knowledge to make good guesses at things wroth trying. I have been on unsuccessful teams too and to paraphrase Chekhov, all unsuccessful teams were different, but all successful teams had the combination of practical and theoretical there somewhere. You do need both.