There but for the grace ...

Since Brad is quite into this at the moment, I thought I'd share my Myers-Briggs results, though they're slightly different from when we did this with marriage counseling. Of course, I've also become a very different person since then ...

ESFJ
Strengths: 11 percent Extroverted
25 percent Sensing
62 percent Feeling
56 percent Judging


* slightly expressed extrovert
* moderately expressed sensing personality
* distinctively expressed feeling personality
* moderately expressed judging personality

Provider Guardian
This seems fairly right, though I'm so slightly extroverted that the perfect hostess bit is a bit off. And I certainly can't see myself in sales! I have an incredibly sense of responsibility, a desire to be involved in things like church and charities to make a difference, and I definitely think I'm a giving person -- though perhaps too much sometimes, like always agreeing to switch my schedule for other people to be off. I'm a shy extrovert, for whatever sense that makes. I love being with people, I get depressed when I'm too alone and inactive, but I'm so incredibly nervous about meeting new people. I'm one of those hang on the side of the room with people you know types at parties, though I do enjoy having people over and the idea of dinner parties. Oh well, that's what happens when you try to pigeonhole people!

But as for what I'd do if I hadn't gone to college, that's a really scary question. I have experience in clerical stuff, but what I love is language and communication. While it's theoretically possible to become a journalist without at degree, they usually require you to complete one as you work, so I'm not sure that would count for this hypothetical. I'm not particularly good with my hands, so trades are out. I guess I might have gotten at two-year nursing degree, but I've never been that interested in biology.

It's a difficult thing to get your mind around, the idea of not going to college. My whole life was geared that way. When I was in junior high, I thought I would be a history professor. I was in honors classes where it wasn't a question of if you'd go to college but where. Heck, my whole high school was pretty much like that, something like 90 percent of us went on for some kind of higher education. Looking at the options that remain if you don't go, I feel bad for those who can't!

I do agree that there are many people in college who shouldn't be -- several business majors I knew come to mind, especially the infamous Jeremiah. Part of that stems from the coddled state of many middle- to upper-class children, though. They can't conceive of having to work for something. They've always just coasted and turned to mom and dad, so they coast through college with C's and a business degree and get some job that is just for them to make money and go on with the rest of their lives. Not to say there aren't passionate, hard-working business majors out there. You find people like this in almost any major. Girls at college for their MRS, guys there as a way to legitimize partying. It's sad, they are the ones that bring the rigor level of universities down.