Right Brain, Left Brain
October 31st, 2006 by Chief NutI have two degrees … a B.S. in Biology and a Minor in Fine Art. Whooptie doo …€” so what. It means I’m fairly unique in that I use both frontal lobes equally well. This comes in handy with things like … ummm, say, building model cars or other activities that require a sense of logic/precision AND a sense of aesthetics. It’s terrible for things like doing brain surgery or painting water lillies at Giverny (Leornardo was a rare exception).
In this article in The Hindu (referred to by Dan Pink in his post called “Up The Value Chain“), we find that IIT Madras is establishing a centre of excellence in engineering design that will attempt to teach aesthetic design in addition to the traditional engineering curiculum. Is this just a waste of time? No ….. BUT! (Isn’t there always a big “but” in these kinds of things?) But, you’d have to temper your expectations with an understanding that this is not an approach to get all the greatest work you’ll need out of a single individual. If the new graduate excels in computer design, they’ll very likely be pretty mediocre at industrial/product design, which uses the other side of the brain.
The advantage of taking this approach is that you’ll get engineers that will be able to better communicate and understand the thought processes of their design cohorts. This would certainly lead to an improvement in most complex teams. Conversely, artists and designers would benefit from courses on logic, math and engineering principles. Please, no BioChem … that just about made my head explode! 
