I have always been told that individuals who use more of their left brain are smart and those who use more of their right brain are creative. This statement is something that I have used to help determine what path I should pursue in my career.
I’m someone who has always gotten above-average grades in school, as a kid I was disappointed to not be artistic and creative like my twin brother. His poor grades and love for art led me to assume that each individual has their place as either a left or right-brained person.
Now a senior in college, I look back on this assumption and question its validity. Through my experiences with marketing, I have found a passion for creating digital art, coming up with risky & out of the box ideas, and using my creative side. I got to thinking, maybe my learning abilities are a fluke, and despite it, I am actually more right-brain dominant.
I found myself too curious and discovered an article that tested students’ GPAs against their brain dominance. I had the same hypothesis as the author which was that students with left-brain dominance would have higher cumulative grade point averages than students with right-brain dominance. This turned out to NOT be the case at all. There was no distinct difference between the GPAs of left and right-brain-dominated students.
This makes sense as I have always struggled to determine where I stand on that spectrum. I feel lucky to now know that I don’t have to force myself to be an accountant when I know that marketing is truly where my passion lies.
https://digitalcommons.odu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1220&context=ots_masters_projects