MIDE 300 has caused me to be aware of two main habits that comprise an innovative character: embracing ambiguity and creative confidence. My awareness for these habits don’t just apply to my experience in MIDE, but also in my other classes and in my spare time as well. I’m extremely grateful that my MIDE experience has allowed me to engage in these two habits more, because I feel that they have allowed me to extract the most out of each event or situation.
I’ve always been the type of person to set long term goals… daily goals on the other hand, not so much. I’m a huge procrastinator, and that’s a habit I think I’ll never fully grow out of. Because of this habit of mine, I have trouble meeting daily goals. That’s why I’ve recently begun to set goals with more “buffer” time. Instead of breaking up an essay and planning to write two paragraphs each day for three days, I’ll just plan to finish it in a week. I designed my prototype based on this long-term goal mindset, and it has worked really well thus far. But with these long-term goals obviously comes a certain level of ambiguity, and I’ve learned to embrace this ambiguity because that’s how I’m the most productive. This ambiguity is definitely on a way smaller scale than the ambiguity that’s present now because of this global pandemic. But because of the short term ambiguity that I’ve been experiencing lately as a result of my goals, it has helped me to approach our ambiguous future in a much more positive light. The government can plan to reopen the economy soon, but in reality, who knows what will happen tomorrow, next week, next month, or in September? The question of whether or not we will go back to school in the Fall is something I used to wonder almost every day, but I realized that planning my current life around a future that is unpredictable isn’t the most beneficial way of living. I don’t know if I’ll be able to be completely comfortable with full ambiguity, as I do need some sort of structure in my life. However, the ambiguity that I’ve experienced thus far with my MIDE prototype has helped me to coexist with it better.
Creative confidence is the other habit that impacted my life a lot this past semester. I’ve always loved art and considered myself a creative person, but MIDE has shown me firsthand that creativity doesn’t just end with art. MIDE has taught me to tap into my right brain, to trust it more, and to apply it to things outside the realm of MIDE. As the semester progressed, I found myself naturally engaging in creative confidence more and more. I found myself using it most in my Integrated Perspectives class, Guessing the Future. Many of the topics we learn about include philosophers and astronomers, all of whom try and predict the future in a scientific and theological way. I’ve never been exposed to astronomy, nor have I ever been good at understanding divine philosophy. However, when answering our weekly journal prompts that require us to synthesize and use much of our own opinion, I find myself using creative confidence to make new connections and revelations that I normally would be too nervous to. It’s really easy for me to second guess myself, especially on topics that can be easily argued from both sides. However, being able to find that confidence in my creative thinking has made critical thinking much easier for me.
Failing forward is definitely a habit that I still need to work on in the future. I think many of us have been taught that we have to be right, that mistakes aren’t positive. However, being in MIDE has taught me that you shouldn’t fall in love with your first idea and that mistakes can lead to great outcomes. Although I understand the concept of failing forward, actually doing so in real life is a different story. There has been so much emphasis on our grades all our lives, and it seems that so much is on the line for us as students nowadays. People fear failure, me included, so it definitely will be hard to accept the positives that come along with the negatives of it. I hope that in the future I’ll be able to put myself in more ambiguous situations, ones that might involve higher risk. The higher the risk, the higher the reward–that’s what failing forward means to me