[maxander]

> Shannon himself encountered Boole’s work in an undergraduate philosophy class. “It just happened that no one else was familiar with both fields at the same time,” he commented later.

Never underestimate the power of being one of the few people to have a particular set of individually-common skills. If you know molecular biology and group theory, or chemical engineering and architecture, or web design and sign language, or whatever and whatever, there's special opportunities open to you and almost noone else.