Creativity break: Why is creativity important in STEM jobs?
About this video
A college student explains that creativity in STEM is not about lone mathematicians, but about communicating, bouncing ideas off each other and building on earlier work. A second speaker says that using today's huge amounts of data well depends on creatively applying mathematical concepts to new data sets.
You'll be able to
- explain why collaboration matters for creativity in math and STEM.
- give an example of applying math concepts creatively to new data.
Key words
- STEM
- Science, technology, engineering and mathematics.
- Collaboration
- Working together and building on each other's ideas.
- Data set
- A collection of information, often numbers, gathered about something.
Transcript
(soft upbeat music) - I think my idea of how creativity works in STEM jobs has changed since I've gone to college. I used to think that all the mathematicians would be locked away in some office and typing on the computers or writing down equations by themselves and coming up with incredibly beautiful ideas just by themselves.
But I'm realizing now that I'm in college that mathematics and creativity, it's a lot about communication, and it's a lot about trying to build off of each other's ideas and bounce ideas off of each other and build upon ideas that have already been made by people decades ago.
And I think that the facts that we all come with it, with our own perspectives, and different ideas and different ways of being creative allows math to advance further, because we can all combine our creative ideas into something bigger.
- We collect data on everything, right? And so the ability to use that data in a smart, safe, and efficient way depends on new applications of mathematical concepts to these new and innovative data sets. As we get to that point, we'll start to be thinking outside the box a lot more, and we'll be a much more innovative, digital society, but that can't happen unless we start trying to be creative, and not just rely on tried and true.
(soft upbeat music)
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