Personality and tests

I am attending sessions offered by the career advisement center that is supposed to help me decide on my career and , more immediately, my major.  I am not sure if it is helping me so far; it feels mostly like a re-hash of what I have researched and realized thus far.  That indicates a few things.  Let me get over the bad first:  the things that these sessions are offering are not very useful.  These are just variations of information that I can—and did—easily get over the Internet.  Call it efficiency, if you will; I can quite easily do some quick research that proves to be on target in many cases.  Now, it also means I tend to rush over things, not adding too much details (if at all).  If I really had my way, all the posts here will end in a paragraph.  Maybe this one will, at least.

I’m just kidding.

Among the things the people inside the sessions have done is the MBTI.  This test is simply a personality test; you fill out some hundred questions (or just about) of two choices (always two choices, and you can only choose one, although you can leave some blank if you are so inclined), and the test results come back to you in the form of one of 16 combinations of four alphabets.  It is easy enough, and while I am not sure how accurate the free, online versions of them are—they are really easily found and quite comprehensive at least in the questions department—I now have a legit MBTI test result.

In advance: if you are lost in what I am talking about, look for MBTI on Google.

The results are not very surprising.  I know that I am strongly introverted and thinking, but rather subtle in the N/S and P/J departments.  Am I sensing or intuitive? Perceiving or judgmental?  These two always swap around for me, depending on the tests and the time they are taken, or so I am assuming.  So far, I have gotten INTJ, INTP, and ISTP.  One more (ISTJ) and I have the whole selection involving I and T covered.

I read the description and what my type is supposed to depict—the official test proclaimed me an INTP—and it is pretty right on.  I value efficiency, and not much bother me (although I am rather cranky as of late).  When I do my homework, I like to them just-in-time and with as few written words as possible; my answers in short answer and essay questions tend to be shorter than everyone else’s. If that is not efficiency, I do not know what is.

I do not know if I should embrace this phenomenon or try to offset it.  It is my nature, and if I tried to alter it, will I not be going against it?  Being very introverted is quite a flaw in the outgoing, extroverted society like America, though…