I being a mechanical engineering student find imagination to be very important. One should be able to imagine and think outside the box to achieve something rewardable and satisfying. Our imagination can in someways develop and grow by observing other people's ideas and their achievements can even make you push yourself a little out of your comfort zone and finally find the idea and achieve what you thought was out of your reach.
But observing other ideas can even make our thinking based on other people's works which is fine but we should learn to draw a fine line and realise when we start to do the exact same thing due to over observation and start copying someone else's ideas.