Longitude Sound BytesEp 10: Be bold and dance! | Glory Nwaugbala – by Rachel Carlton (Listen)

Glory Nwaugbala, associate at Wilmer Hale, New York City:

Hi My name is Glory Nwaugbala and I currently reside in New York City. I’m an associate at WilmerHale.

What does Creativity mean to me?

Well, creativity to me is using old experiences to create new ones. The idea of creativity reminds me of the time I studied abroad in Argentina during college. My psychology class required that we include an artistic aspect to our finals project – a creative representation of how the mind processed input to create a desired output. I remember being completely stumped at first. What on earth was I going to do? Singing was out of the question. Playing an instrument was a no. And let’s not think about drawing or painting. And then it hit me – dance! Specifically, incorporating the step dance routine I’d learned for Rice’s BSA Soulnight event the semester before into a new rendition for the project. With some tinkling here, and some tweaks there – a new routine was born. Weeks later, it was D-day. Entering a room where three other oral finals took place at the same time, I began my own. After completing my final, it was time to bust out the artistic component. I took breath and started in on my step dance routine. By the time I was done the entire room was silent. You could hear a pin drop. Oh no – I’d thought – was it really that bad? I’d practiced for hours! And then the claps began – a literal round of applause as the others in the room with me – both those taking their finals, and the professors giving it – applauded the performance. Where did you learn that? What dance is that called? More questions came from excited and curious onlookers. I explained the history and background of step dancing  – happy and touched that I could share a part of my culture with others, and that they were interested in hearing about it. Of course, later hearing that I’d aced the final wasn’t bad either.

Whatever creativity means to you – don’t be afraid to take chances and create wonderful new memories.

Rachel Carlton, Longitude fellow, Rice University, Houston:

Thanks to Glory for that great example of how creativity doesn’t have to mean starting from scratch. It’s easy to think of yourself as someone who isn’t creative – the creative people we often think about in society are the musicians, the painters, the architects – but everyone has it in them to innovate and produce something one-of-a-kind.

Whether you’re thinking about academia and building upon past research to ask and answer new questions, using engineering design principles to solve problems through inventive solutions, or coming up with ways to explain historical trends, creativity is the basis of that innovation.

It’s the conduit through which people in any field can contribute and advance work that has been done. And as Glory said, it’s a lot of fun.

Think back to your last big project or task and what you did to approach it. What previous knowledge or experience did you draw from to help you? How were you able to answer new questions with what you had already done? You’re sure to identify ways in which you were creative in your efforts.

We hope you enjoyed todays segment. Please feel free to share your thoughts over social media and in the comments, or write to us at podcast@longitude.site. We would love to hear from you.

Join us next time for more unique insights on Longitude Sound Bytes.