Academia has taken a toll on my creativity
Team work, creative solutions… has uni (law school at least) been forgetting this? Out of five years’ worth of courses in Law, Finance and Economics, I have come across one class with a strong group work element. It’s true that law lecturers always encouraged creative thinking, yet did they ever endow us with the skills to properly develop our creativity?1 Not in my classes. We all know that in the real world we will need to cooperate with one another (even if grudgingly for some of us), but for most of the past four years I’ve gotten nothing but an individualistic, competitive vibe from my environment. 90% of you responsible and academic-oriented ones may enjoy this, because all if not most of you would have experienced having to cover three other group members’ work in the last minute. And I was indeed one of the 90% who stood by individualism yet shamelessly stressed how much of a team worker I am in job applications. Was.
The dispute resolution paper I took over January-February involved a group presentation, with seven students in each group. When this course requirement was introduced in the first class, I cringed. By the end of the course, I have made six new friends, allowed my creativity to soar, and experienced staying so late in law school that we got locked in the building. The group presentation deprived me of a golden A, but was nonetheless the most rewarding experience I have had throughout my years of uni.
By fifth-year in uni, most law students tend to think of themselves as working individually in small cubicles, little to do with other “lowly dumb commoners”. When people are put in groups whether it be during class or in a co-curricular activity, the ambitious ones are fighting to be the only one to present all the ideas for the group (as if they did all the work), the less-ambitious ones are as quiet and non-contributing as they were five years ago, and the “leaders”2 are bossing other people around without ‘please’ and ‘thank you’s.3
Creativity-wise, I used to create admirable artworks and designs. Recently, I’ve struggled to create an averagely-attractive blog design for even the simplest blog.
Stories and poetry used to flow out of my head any time, anywhere. These days I’m hitting walls trying to come up with any decent descriptive language to write average quality fiction. After all, I’ve written five-years’ worth of research essays in a strictly professional tone about nothing but law and economics.
Those studying in the creative fields may not be able to sympathise, but I’m dying to finish this semester so I can escape this rigid cage, confinement, whatever. Of course, while at work I’ll still be referring to statutes and regulations, but at work I support and am supported by a team of amazing colleagues and I can once again bring back the daily usage of Adobe Photoshop and flowery adjectives after 6pm without a trace of guilt.
- By this I mean not just telling us to think outside the square, but teach or train us how to think outside the square. [↩]
- Thank you very much for encouraging this, law firms. [↩]
- Disclaimer: these come from my personal experiences and my observations on a general scale. And I said “tend do”. [↩]
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Stephanie says...
I’ve some of the same kind of experiences at university, where sometimes I feel like all I do is analysis and not much design. The group projects that I’ve done have taught me more about dealing with people than design, and have never failed to remind me how much I hate people in general sometimes.
However, I’ve come to terms with this fact by hoping that this assumption is true: School doesn’t teach you how to do a job in the real world. Doing a job teaches you how to do the job. School is supposed to provide you with the necessary tools for doing a job. So even after we graduate, we’ve got a lot to learn still, especially if part of the job is creative thinking, as is true in both engineering and law.
Hopefully once school becomes less boggling you’ll have more time to tinker. And then you’re creative side will come back!
Posted on 9 March 2011 at 11:12 pm
Rilla says...
@Stephanie:
This is so absolutely true. Although I have (very luckily) been in a few classes (high school & uni) where the teachers really tried to empower us with creative thinking techniques, even though those classes sounded at first like they could only be taught in a traditional boring way. So I definitely think there are ways to get around the whole “work is meant to be fun, school can only be gay” thing.
Posted on 10 March 2011 at 10:30 am
Tina says...
OMG WHAT IS THIS, A NEW BLOG UPDATE?
(Don’t worry, I’ve been just as guilty updating my own blog…)
Strangely, what you say is true even with medicine. I consider school more of a foundation, a rite of passage, and then real world builds upon that.
I write like an 8th grader. I’m super duper serious too
WTB Rills uber english skillz0rz.
Posted on 10 March 2011 at 12:06 pm
Rilla says...
@Tina: Oh funny! From what I hear from my sis I thought med was more supportive group work… Um cutting people together lol?
Posted on 10 March 2011 at 9:25 pm
Amanda says...
It’s funny reading this from the opposite perspective of the spectrum. I WISH there were more things in jazz school that didn’t require dependence on others to step up and not ruin your mark for you.
But anyway, more focus on what you said. I think the good difference between you and most students out there is that you’re at least aware of this deficiency in team work and creativity. It’s refreshing to see someone who actually says they’ve gained something from a group work experience, even though it cost you a better grade. Also, please write that novel and post snippets! I kind of miss back in the day when you’d post a new article or poetic thing and make us all read it :p
Posted on 11 March 2011 at 12:00 am
Angela says...
I think teamwork and interpersonal skills were not really emphasised in my degree as well. They probably assumed that you would acquire the experience from elsewhere outside of university. Even though we had lab groups for the lab components of some of my papers, there was no group work involved because we went off on our own and wrote reports individually after obtaining experimental results. However, one paper was an exception because the assignments actually required group effort. But as it turned out, the tutors had grouped us according to GPA. So yes, I was the member who mentally exclaimed ‘SCREW THIS’ and took over all the work to lessen the chance of having my grade jeopardised. But at the end of all that, I enjoyed the experience and became good friends with my team mates, but I can’t say I would like to repeat the whole ordeal.
Posted on 11 March 2011 at 3:12 pm