Valuing one field more than another As my field, Computer Science (CS), has many sub-areas and specializations. I found myself having a not-so-good impression about different areas within CS. For example, I see working on Software Engineering as a waste of time while working on Artificial Intelligence (AI) is much more worthing an investigation.

This is not a field-specific question, I wish hearing whether this exists on other fields as well. Is it common in academia for individuals to find some subfields of a more broader research area more interesting and relevant than others? Relatedly, how does one avoid thinking that way?
Just like the grass is always greener on the other side, it is somewhat usual for people to think that their particular area of expertise is somewhat more valuable than others. I have seen it in all fields I have heard of…

And it's not restricted to academic life: I'm sure the cardiac surgeon feels that his work is so much more important than that of the family physician, while the later thinks that he's the one tasked with stopping epidemics and diagnosing the important stuff to save lives.

But I'm sure you already knew that… so, what is your question exactly?



Edit: how does one avoid thinking that way?

The most difficult part, for me, in thinking objectively about other fields is to be able to correctly identifying the challenges they face. I find that it is altogether too easy to think “hey, that's a trivial optimization problem” or “know that they know the compound formula, I wonder why it takes them so long to synthesize it”. Better overall understanding of other fields helps a lot avoid this way of thinking. It takes a lot of effort to acquire such a broad general knowledge: reading, listening to conferences outside your area of expertise, chatting with colleagues, …