TERM environment variable not set. Mac OS os.system("clear")

Hi, I'm quite the noob. 

I am trying to use the function os.system("clear"). Initially, I got the following error:

"TERM environment variable not set."

I followed the instructions, given by various sources, that describe how to set the TERM as defined here:

http://softwaretester.info/pycharm-term-environment-variable-not-set/

I no longer get the error but the console does not clear. I do not have this issue when from the terminal using the "python interactive session" (I think this is what it's called when "python" or "python3" is typed in the terminal). The issue persists though in PyCharm. I saw a few unanswered cases of this:

https://teamtreehouse.com/community/term-environment-variable-not-set-pycharm 

Thanks in advance