In the past 100 years spanning most of the 20th century, everything important that is now in existence was developed, invented or significantly improved.

The many items in the life of a person today may be taken for granted by the young people, especially those under 30, but developments and knowledge are being accumulated so fast, there is scant time to absorb them. This is being commonly referred to as "Information Overload".

One hundred years ago not many professional people were expected to have formal educations, with the exceptions of physicians, attorneys, engineers, scientists and teachers/professors. Families with money who could afford to educate their children did so in classical curricula, such as art, music, literature and history. Businessmen developed their skills by working with mentors, older practitioners of various endeavors, such as banking, trading and retail activities. The more difficult trades, which usually involved manual labor, such as mining, farming, manufacturing, transportation, etc. were learned by being apprenticed to a master, often with little or no pay.

Even 50 years ago, because of the vast number of developments spurred by World War-II, education at all levels, especially colleges, took on a new paradigm. A higher education at the college level and beyond was viewed as a commonplace objective for young people. Subjects could be mastered with learning from books and some short years of experience. Entering colleges from high school required basic knowledge of "reading, writing, and arithmetic", plus exposure to specialized subjects of physical and biological sciences, some languages, chemistry, and advanced mathematics. Pre-World War-II high schools could crank out prepared students, because of the relatively low level of education needed for college.

This is no longer the case. The past 50 years, with each year becoming increasingly more complicated in every conceivable subject, has raised the threshold of "being educated" in any subject to a level never before imagined.

This is the background for all Professional activities today: preparation and education. The amount of knowledge required for a student to get prepared for any professional lifetime has exploded to the point that it borders on impossible, within the time frame of education that has existed for so long. A specific example: the vast knowledge and advancements that have been made in engineering and science in the past decades have caused aspiring students in these fields to drop out in numbers never before to be imagined. The curricula have become intensely difficult and entry into the top schools has become mind-numbingly competitive scholastically and overwhelmingly expensive financially. Professionally, it has become a national problem and issue.

The same can be said for a lot of professions, including medicine, pharmaceuticals, biological sciences, and a field not in existence 30 years ago: computers, the Internet and cellular/satellite communications.