Essay on Preparing for Success at University, Knowledge and Creativity

Although creativity is assumed to be genetic, it mostly depends on a person’s environment and his upbringing. If a person is born in a musician family and he grew up in an environment where music was taught and practised, he will also grow the desire to learn music. Frustration and failure can also bring about creativity in person. People who have failed in life once or twice tried to overcome their failure in a creative way. Failure pushes them to be creative and find ways to tackle the obstacle that is in their way. Criticism is also one of the things that can make you creative. People criticise others all the time. To overcome criticism, they find creative ways to overcome their weaknesses. It depends upon person will power and desire to change himself for the better. Change is what brings about creativity in people.

A university is a place full of creative people and a place of knowledge. It is a place where you can polish your creativity skills and enhance your knowledge to be able to get a reasonable job after you graduate. Knowledge and creativity both play an important role in the getting good grades in the university. If you’re being creative, it makes you stand out from the crowd and boosts your morale. I noticed that people become creative when they go through difficult circumstances and it also affects their emotions and behaviour. I’ve developed myself creatively by using six thinking hats model (De Bono, 2003). It was developed by Edward De Bono who is one the pioneers in Brain Training. It also helps us in understanding other techniques like ‘parallel thinking’ and ‘critical thinking’. We can apply this technique to check our decision from different perspectives. Each hat donates a different thinking style.

I’ve learned that in white hat style, I can look at the available data in a neutral way. I can analyse past trends and make my decision based on them. I can fill any missing links and gaps in the data and try to fill that gap. In red hat style, I’ve learned how you can rely on your gut feeling. I can use my experience and knowledge to feed to my intuition. I’ve learned that how you can listen to other members opinions and how to react to those opinions in a positive way. I’ve learned that with the black hat, I can look at a decision’s negative outcomes and how I can react to them. I look at the possibilities of what can work or not. It helped me in finding out the weaknesses of the plans. Now that I’ve found weaknesses of my plan, I can prepare a contingency plan to counter them or I can alter them to be sustainable. Yellow hat helped me in thinking positively. I’ve learned how to be optimistic and see the benefits of decision. In my opinion, it helps in situations when things seem difficult and we are finding it difficult to find a solution to the problem at hand. Green hat helped me with how I can be creative and develop creative solutions. It showed me how I can visualize and develop solutions which are free from errors. It helped me to come up with solutions which are usually acceptable to my peers and group members. This hat style helped me how to control other process or hat styles. It showed me how I can implement my leadership skills. I can direct the ideas to the green hat if they are running dry or I can route them to the black hat if there is a contingency.  In short six thinking hats model showed me how I can think about something from different angles. This skill greatly helped me in enhancing my creativity. This skill can also help you in practical life and when you’re going to do a job in a company.

            To meet the challenges of university and to submit the assignments in time I’ve practised the pomodoro technique which helped me in overcoming procrastination. You should also schedule your tasks and assignments by making daily, weekly and monthly to do list. You should make a reward and punish based system for meeting your deadlines. In university you are burdened with so many things and I’ve learned this that by making yourself punctual I was able to become proactive and meet course deadlines. You can also take the help of your seniors and learn from their experiences. University is a great place to enhance your communication skills. Another thing that helped me is being proactive and don’t restrict yourself to your dorm room. Going out and exploring yourself will also help greatly. Also taking care of health is also important. It was my daily routine to work out and keep myself healthy. Daily exercise can go a long way and it can help you in being proactive. Also, in my time at university I’ve learned that by asking questions you can learn so much. So, don’t be afraid to ask questions. There are so much things you can do on campus. There are so many people and diversity in university and you can learn so many things about different cultures (Baek, 2019). It will also help you in when you will do your job. In short you should get out of your comfort zone, avoid procrastination, apply Six Thinking Hat model and schedule your tasks. It will surely help you in meeting deadlines of the university assignments.

References of Preparing for Success at University: Knowledge and Creativity

Baek, J. (2019, August 1). Five tips to make the most of your university experience. Retrieved from timeshighereducation: https://www.timeshighereducation.com/student/advice/student-blog-five-tips-make-most-your-university-experience#survey-answer

De Bono, E. (2003). Six Thinking Hats. Penguin 2008.