Some thoughts about Innovations

I have been thinking this enriching community and interdisciplinary learning: what are the best ways in making it work at the bachelor level? There are ways and have been for a while now of giving multidisciplinary and creative education at master's level like in ME310-studies at Stanford University U.S. or in IDBM-studies in Helsinki. These studies are international, interdisciplinary and they encourage to creativity. In this kind of studies students will make a long lasting relations and friendships that enrich their lives, also their professional ones. Still, I am sure that first you have to have the enthusiasm for the subject and the social curiosity - that you know you will have fun doing this with these different people. The professional or economic profit will follow, but it can not lead - anyway that is how I think and that is usually forgotten while having the economic expectations as the first and the most important thing. Does economic welfare lead to human welfare or other way around? Which comes first? Which is more important? Do I have to ask?

One challenge, they say, is how to get the most of the multidisciplinary possibilities and not to mix up the students' professional identity - "am I a designer/an engineer etc. or what and what to do with all this knowledge?" This is based on the idea that you have to have professional skills deep enough and by that a growing identity of some profession, before widening skills to other disciplines could make you a better professional. I guess, the Professional Identity is on a healthy base, when the widening the knowledge of yours also deepens your professional skills (as a designer, engineer, teacher or what ever the profession is) instead of fragmenting the identity to irrelevant pieces.

Other challenge is to build up creative environments and creative interactivity between students, teachers and companies. To make a creative spirit you need an enthusiastic teacher, the students who are willing to work together and an environment, that supports many kinds of activity. Good business relations and international connections will help in achieving that too. A Creative Community is a Heterogeneous Community, isn't it?