Career Center Workshops

Korrin B.

May 28, 2011 - 6:00 PM

As a complement to my studies at the University, I am enrolled in the Career Center's Professional Distinctions program. This program emphasizes your education in a way that relates to your professional goals. To enroll in the program, a student must choose an academic area of concentration. I chose to use my Nonprofit Administration minor as my area of concentration. The requirements for the program then include submitting a resume, completing an internship, and attending four Career Center workshops.

The Career Center offers a variety of workshops throughout each term that give students the opportunity to learn how to apply their education to professional activities. For the four required by the Professional Distinctions program, I had two waived for resume and cover letter writing workshops I took through the PPPM department. Attending last year's Business Etiquette dinner fulfilled my third. I just got my fourth and final one completed this week. For this fourth workshop, I attended an information session on the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator test.

The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) is a test that asks about 90 questions and, from these, determines what personality type you are. This information is then used to determine which types of careers you would theoretically be the happiest in and which would not be a great fit. There are four categories of personality that create your overall personality type. These personality types include extraversion versus introversion, sensing versus intuition, thinking versus feeling, and judging versus perceiving.

Before we were given our results in the workshop, our facilitator explained some of the history of the MBTI to us, as well as how it works. We went through various exercises as well that helped us to make a prediction on what our type might be. Our facilitator explained the importance of understanding that this was just one type of testing and that we should compare it to what we believe to be true in order to make the most accurate decisions. He was great at explaining everything step by step and taught us the different ways that we could use the information to interpret things about ourselves.

In the end, I was not surprised by my result. In fact, through our activities, I had guessed the same personality type that I had actually gotten through the test. I was an INFP, or introversion, intuition, feeling, perceiving. The report said that this meant I enjoyed work that allowed me to help others, complete meaningful tasks, and be creative. It said that I enjoyed work that allowed me some private time and personal space, as well as opportunities to work with mission-driven individuals with similar values. A lot of the jobs it suggested for me included positions in the arts or community and social services.

I thought that this was a fun and informative workshop. I had been wondering about these types of personality tests, as we have discussed them a bit in my leadership class this term. It was interesting getting to actually take one and then learn about its interpretation. I am glad that the Professional Distinctions program included the requirement of taking some Career Center workshops. They are definitely valuable to the students on campus.