I did not have many expectations for this class when I first enrolled in it. I knew I would probably learn technologies I did not know already, and that I would be able to use computer science as a creative medium as opposed to just a tool to solve problems. Throughout the semester, I was able to live these expectations and more, learning about the process of collaborative creation, different frameworks in which to think about creativity, and how I can use what I learned in the future.
Over the past four years, I have been a part of countless group projects, but with each one, I feel like I learn something new about working in a group. This time was no exception. This semester, I learned two things in particular. One: bouncing ideas off each other leads to unpredictably unique ideas. That is, having time and space to have an open discussion with your team members can yield pretty creative ideas about the assignment at hand. It is that freedom to express any idea, no matter how infeasible it may seem. The key is to listen and digest the ideas of others’, as opposed to just thinking inside your own head. These discussions are something my group did frequently, and it quickly led to results we ended up actually incorporating into our project. The second thing I learned was, while having open discussions is paramount to collaborating creatively, having time to yourself to let your own ideas simmer helps the collective unit as well. This applies to me especially as an introverted thinker. Having time to reflect on my own ideas as well as those of others helped me to visualize the larger picture and think of the project in many different ways. This helped me communicate new ideas with my teammates and carry out my portion of the project better.
I found two of the semester’s themes to be especially interesting, especially when juxtaposed together: ambiguity and constraint. From what I understand, ambiguity is the idea of making something so simple and vague that the people observing have a great amount of freedom to interpret it in their own way. This leads to different ways of viewing or using the object at hand, simply because there is so little description in the art or object by itself. Constraint seems like it is almost the opposite: it is the idea of putting a heavy amount of constraints on an object or application so that the user is forced to think outside of the box when using or thinking about the object within the constraints. By eliminating possibilities for the object at hand, the user must come up with new ideas to satisfy these constraints. These two frameworks, ambiguity and constraint, seem to be opposites. On one hand, you are given complete freedom and on the other, little freedom at all. Yet they both lead to creativity, new ideas, and inspiration. I find this almost paradoxical. Both of these ideas helped me to think about creativity and inspiration in a completely new light.
Arguably the most important part of learning is knowing how you will use what you learned in the future. Part of the reason I took this class, and why I take many of the electives I take, is to get a new perspective on the field of computer science. I certainly did this semester. As I start as a Software Engineer after graduation, even though I may not be working on a project as creative as the one for this class, I will still use much of our creative practice and thought process in solving real-world problems. Bouncing ideas off team members and having solitary thinking time will both help create solutions in a work setting. Thinking from an ambiguous and constrained perspective will help me think through the problems in a new and fresh way. Creativity is absolutely essential in any field, whether it be engineering/problem solving, or something artistic. Being able to think outside the box has so many real-world applications, and has helped me in the past and will help me in the future.