Published: 20 September 2021
The University of Sunderland in London is unique not just for its small class sizes and brilliant location near Canary Wharf, but for the kinds of courses we teach too.
Focusing on management degrees will help you get the skills you need to go after your highest career goals.
But just because we teach business-centred courses doesn’t mean there isn’t room for creativity in your studies.
The modern workplace is filled with opportunities to be creative and is becoming a key thing employers look for when hiring new staff.
That could mean anything from coming up with new marketing campaigns for a small business to unique ideas for tourist trips.
University is the perfect time to develop the skills which will help in your future career. Try these five for becoming creative.
1) Become more imaginative
“Imagination is everything. It is the preview of life’s coming attractions” - Albert Einstein.
The first, and perhaps most important, step for creativity is developing your imagination.
Thinking through new ideas is a key concept for being a top employee as much as it is for writing great assignments.
You can practice yours by doing things like reading more, taking time out to daydream, or simply asking lots of questions.
Try imagining a problem related to your university work – whether that’s how to approach an assignment or meeting a particular deadline.
2) Quick-fire solutions
Creativity can often come from not over-thinking.
Not allowing room for doubt and the normal process of finding issues with things gives your mind space to come up with ideas it would otherwise dismiss.
Take one of the problems you thought of in the last section and try and write ten solutions for it as quickly as you can.
Don’t worry about whether they’ll work or not – that part comes later.
3) Stay disciplined
Creativity is a process of hard work as much as it is open sky thinking.
As a university student that can mean spending time focusing on your studies. Make notes of deadlines and stick to them.
You can stay motivated by writing down your achievements as you go, whether that’s finishing making notes on an article or handing in your dissertation.
4) Ask if you’re being innovative
Not everything in life needs to be about coming up with brand new ideas no one else has ever thought of.
Some of the most creative people have made pre-existing things better – think of Steve Jobs, the iPhone wasn’t the first phone or even the first smartphone!
In your assignments, ask yourself if you’re approaching your topic from a different angle. What could you do to make the idea unique?
5) Evaluate your work
After you’ve handed in your assignment, take time to go through it again and write down what creative skills you have used.
You could do this after you’ve had your mark back so you can use the feedback to inform the process.
Doing this sort of reflection will be a major help when trying to be creative on future assignments.
All these ideas are aimed at developing your sense of creativity. The more you practice something like this the more comfortable you will become with the idea of innovation.
That means, by the time you’re ready to enter the workplace being creative will be a habit – something top employers want from their graduates.
Think you’re being creative in your studies? We’d love to hear your stories.
Share them with us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram today using #WeAreSunLon.