Hello, I’m Brittany Sgaliardich, and I am a masochist.
These are the usual comments I find it necessary to include after sharing my undergrad degree – and at the moment, its Industrial Engineering and English.
“…So why do this to yourself?”
Why commit five years to a life of three-page proofs and six-page papers? Why suffer from intellectual whiplash because numbers and letters don’t play nice?
Well, I think creativity is larger than the sum of its parts. I like ideas that come in formulas and in prose.
I don’t mean to suggest that a double major is a bonafide path to creativity. I don’t even mean to suggest school is the best way to be creative. My point is more simple that that — different disciplines do different things to our minds, expanding the ways we view the world around us. Exposure to various subjects feeds our ability to think divergently.
Via: Flickr
Divergent thinking is defined as “developing in different directions.” To think divergently is to generate ideas beyond routine modes of thought or work expectations –- discovering not just one, but several varied solutions.
Most are familiar with the phrase “thinking outside the box.” That’s divergent thinking in a nutshell. It’s a free-flowing method of thought in which we answer a question by breaking down a whole into its components. Often, we use divergent thinking to generate questions rather than answers. We do so using our different forms of intelligence. We may view a problem logically, but perhaps also emotionally, visually or even musically.
School teaches problem-solving. The mindset we study to adopt is so that, when the time comes, we’re prepared for the real world. And, the real world’s got problems and problems need solving. A college education teaches the conventions of and theory concerning a certain discipline—a convergent thought process at its core.
It works for a lot of things. Convergent thinking is logical, rational and reliable. This train of thought requires practical knowledge and a guided set of rules to arrive at one answer. And for the greater part of our education, we have been trained to think convergently.
Via: NASA
The thing is sometimes the prevailing wisdom is off. Sometimes it’s even misleading. And if the convergent path we are taught is false, or has wrong assumptions, it’s up to the divergent process to help us reorient. As it seems, the big picture can look complex in one light and simple in another.
On our path to “employable,” an increasing number of us wind up in college. We enter this place for four years, suffocated by the need to make one overwhelming choice: our major. This is the first step in a long career of putting our degrees to use. And what’s implicit in that promise of higher education is that a math degree is what makes a mathematician, that an art degree is what makes an artist, or that an English degree is what makes a dropout. (Just kidding, Mom and Dad).
But I question, Can our undergrad degree really define what we think? How we think?
Today’s emphasis on specialization argues the answer is yes. I don’t pretend to know any better, just that skepticism of any black-and-white career plan seems reasonable. It is this dubious definitiveness that has brought many a friend to tears, or at least to Midtown.
So, why does this freak us out? I believe students are often overwhelmed by selecting majors because they, as humans, cannot be so rightly defined. Narrowing one’s interests so soon can leave them halfway to their full potential.
Those who we may consider to have reached their full potential tend to spend their time in different realms. Albert Einstein was, yes, a mathematical genius, but also a devoted violinist. Leonardo da Vinci was a painter and draftsman, as well as an engineer and scientist. Steve Jobs devoted some of his brief collegiate career to a calligraphy class when he wasn’t dreaming of computers. These were people whose education involved convergent and divergent thinking, in and out of school.
Via: Classical Music Blogspot
Whether it’s art history, Greek mythology or music theory, astronomy, microbiology or statistics — whether your appreciation is transient or committed — human brains are muscles that respond well to different experiences. Divergent thought feeds off these multiple ways of observing the world to generate unique answers (or questions) and better focuses our convergent processes.
So, let’s be honest. We don’t all have the time to attach a liberal arts minor to our STEM degree or vice versa. And frankly, we barely have the funds or willpower to get through our core courses. But, we don’t need to add classes to our schedules in order to exercise our brains. And, according to UF’s own Divergent Thinking Professor, Elf Ackali there are ways to do so without tacking on more classes.
We’re stuck with this chunk of mass in our skulls for the rest of our lives. Nourish it. Challenge it and not just with drugs and alcohol.
So, am I a masochist? Yes. Am I insane? Possibly. Finding joy in my own suffering? Unfortunately, the answer is yes. There is always pain in pushing your mind outside of its comfort zone.
Via: In Vitro
But I’ll tell you, it hurts so good.
Feature photo courtesy of: Handal Global
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