Personality types and doing quizzes or tests to find out career choices or the personality traits one embodies is obviously just a guide or tool but not a definitive answer of course. I’m quite wary about personality types because not only does everyone embodies more than one singular personality types but also that people change and I’ve done the same quiz with two different results. In MaiaLearning, I took both the interesting quiz, based on the Holland Code, and the personality traits based on the “psychologist” Carl Jung.
Holland Code:
It’s clear that they are all quite tied but the three categories that apply to me most is investigative, artistic and realistic. This to me does make sort of sense, I do value the arts and am engage with it fully, but I’m also practical and like maths and science. To be honest, I really am interested in everything, even in categories that didn’t apply to me as much such as social (in some contexts I do like working with people). However, the question is what am I good at and what interests really resonates with me. and for me, the investigative, artistic and realistic, are probably the values I regard most in myself. The careers suggested included architects, archaeologists, astronomers, landscape architects, which are careers that do sound very appealing to me, especially architecture. Architecture is something I have been looking to for a few years because of the interests that are required. Architects need to be creative and be able to draw/sketch to communicate ideas, they work with a variety of tools and materials from digital to old technology, they communicate with clients and work together with other people, they must be analytical but also investigative at times solving problems involving maths and science. These things sound very appealing to me and architecture might be a possible career. However, I might do something completely different in the future that may align with my other interests in music, other creative arts, environmental science and others.
This leads to a thought I have had recently in which life in this generation is both easier and harder. Despite having access to digital technology, good health care, education, safe environment and more (which I have access to due to my socioeconomic status), it hasn’t made life easier. In fact, it may have made it harder and now, you need much more, be able to do much more, have experienced much more to access the same universities, jobs, financial status and not to mention climate change that may ruin it all. I wonder what might happen to future generations, concerning universities and jobs. People are in education much longer now, because, in some ways, they need to. Maybe there will be something higher than a PhD or Doctorate in the future in order to gain that step ahead in a job application for instance.
Personality traits:
Although quite similar, the two scores I got was INTJ and INFJ. So despite being different, there are some familiarities and things I might gain insight from.
In summary, I am imaginative, creative, sensitive, intense and private. These qualities, I feel do sort of apply to me. I am possibly more introverted than extroverted especially at school, but there are times I do feel like I am more extroverted. I feel as though I have multiple personalities (which I am sure most people do) and I embodied them in different situations. So sometimes I am very quiet, but sometimes I am very outgoing and caring.
Now, despite being suspicious about personalities, I was almost surprised, intrigued and a bit scared that some things hold very true according to the results. For instance that I am a “private person, and you take time getting to know people and letting others get to know you,” that I have a “small group of close and trusted friends, and are generally cautious about jumping into new social situations” and being thorough and empathetic but (and this really resonated with me), “you will try hard to please the people you care about.” That is very true,
The results really brought the attention of who I am. I since I am a sceptical person, and it did say I was, scared that most of the things it said, is something I have realised in myself. One weakness I had was that I may be “confusing and not communicate clearly, not showing enough enthusiasm” which is almost 100% true, or at least in school. In other situations like with my family, I’m quite the opposite. I really have a hard time articulating my thoughts verbally, and can only communicate clearly when writing, or play music or draw. I know what I am thinking but I can put them to words sometimes.
Despite this, it might be so that I am forcing myself to align to these indicators that when I see these indicators I am certain that these apply to me when in fact there is some psychology behind it. In other words, it is human nature that we notice things that we sort of agree with and try to pinpoint things in our life that matches it. Instead of looking at the whole I am cherry-picking events in my life that align to these indicators so it feels like they apply to me.
There are lots more insights I gained and things I can learn from it so this test shook me up. The careers I was suggested included managers and funny side note, I was a 100% match for solar installation manager and I am currently working with other students in a solar panel installation group. Being a manager doesn’t seem very appealing to me but despite this, I do feel like the results were really helpful and almost accurate to the smallest detail.
