One of my favorite genres of reading is the fantasy genre. It lets the mind soar to new heights and really teaches you how to ‘think out of the box’. On my blog, I have placed some ‘interesting links’ to book series that really engaged my mind to beautiful new worlds and great magics.
Brandon Sanderson’s Stormlight Archive series is a rich with detail and great characterization. You want to relate to the characters that are portrayed their. They go through very real development, such as one character’s drive to become a great scholar, as well as saving her family. I really enjoy how he brings humanity to the characters in his series.
Why bring up fantasy books? I believe with the choice of actuarial science as new career, you really need to think ‘out of the box’ and have the vision to solve complex problems.
An actuary came to give us a talk about the field, his company and his work in the field. One thing that he said stuck out in my mind. He said that he needed to work on a project, using the programming tool excel VBA, that required him to go beyond the common and go with a novel approach to solving that particular problem. Just like that, fantasy books force you to imagine things that do not exist in our universe. Sanderson’s world has completely different flora and fauna. Ideas are actually given shape on his world of Roshar. It is a total upheaval of our view of existence. Yes, it is an imaginary realm. However, by reading such books, we are transported to these fantastic realms; observers from another plane of existence.
Employers also seek those that can think away from the normal and look more towards the novel. These are the leaders of tomorrow within a company. Even if they are not leaders, they offer so much to the company in terms of productivity and intellectual growth. As I spoke about in previous articles, intellectual entrepreneurship is a dynamic concept and every experience lends strength to a greater development (Cherowitz and Sullivan, 2002).Thinking past the concrete and going into the abstract, allows us to build skyscrapers out of our intellectual landscape.
I also would like to refer back to the article, Shape Shifting Portfolio People. The idea of placing yourself in Sanderson’s world, was very to similar to how Gee, (2004) placed himself in the role of video game character. In both instances, there are bringing the level of thinking to a new level by projecting abilities that one may not be able to accomplish in reality (2004). I really believe that thinking about other worlds and other ways of thinking will really revolutionize any industry.
Even if we look up at our skies, we imagine ourselves traveling on a light beam, yet slowing down enough to see the wonders of the cosmos. An odyssey of the mind is taking place as we read thought provoking reading, such as in the fantasy genre. I embrace the fact that with every fantasy book I read, the more my thinking shifts to newer heights and extends to newer boundaries!
Cherwitz and Sullivan, Intellectual Entrepreneurship–A Vision for Graduate Education