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Help Choosing a Major

Sensi Star

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Hello all. Been lurking here for a week now, and decided to register as I really need help with a career. I am an extreme INTP. I am currently attending a community college and have finished all of the universally 'required' courses. I am now stuck in deciding on a major. Like most INTPs, I lose interest quickly in one particular area of study. I also am quite a non-conformist and must first filter all decision through my logical and analytical mind.

I have a 4.0 GPA, and excel at pretty much any course. However, above all, I am an extremely effective writer. I have greatly impressed even the most strict English teachers throughout high school and college. My writing style is very descriptive, very wordy, logical, and analytical. I am notorious for going well over the recommended essay length due to my need for thoroughness and consistency. However I don't think I could make a career out of writing: I have a very short attention span, and am tortured by doing repetitive stationary tasks. I like to be moving around frequently, with some sitting mixed in. My dream job would be one that is balanced with mental labor and physical labor.

My main interests:

I am now and have always been obsessed with recreational drugs. Along with being a user of cannabis, opiates, and psychedelics, I am fascinated with learning about the many different effects/mind states available through them, as well as light pharmacology. I am highly analytical with drugs, and enjoy using my knowledge of drugs to answer questions on drug forums, especially www.bluelight.ru. Are there any careers that would satisfy this hobby that do not involve LYING and anti-drug PROPAGANDA?

I am also kind of a liberal hippy deep down. I could endlessly write critically and complain about American Capitalism and its anti-spiritual culture. About the toxic ways we are programmed to conform, be selfish, and value money over humanitarian values. But pursuing a career involving this might be a good way to get assassinated by some powerful conservative organization.

This is probably the most hopeful interest: I find myself constantly critiquing products and small systems (like services). I am an idea person / problem solver / improver. Always coming up with ideas for new products, or (more often) ideas on how to improve products/services. I must not be pressured by a short time-deadline, this shuts down my abilities. However, I find myself overwhelmed by the infinity of choices/options, so creativity is not my thing. This means I would rather focus on the FORMATION of these improvement ideas, not necessarily PRODUCING/IMPLEMENTING them.

Sorry for length, thanks for reading this far.
 

EyeSeeCold

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You should maybe major in Psychology and go into business for yourself.
 

Sensi Star

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Does psychology usually work out for Introverts? I find it very hard to relate to non-INTPs because of the very different ways my mind works. I'm assuming you'd need to be extroverted to succeed in psychology, unless it's something 'behind the scenes'.
 

EyeSeeCold

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I see Extrovert psychiatrists/shrinks/therapists as focusing more on establishing comfort and stability in people's lives to bring them back into society. Introvert shrinks are better at understanding people with mental disorders/socially handicapped as they can relate in a way. Some people need that deep feeling of understanding to make themselves feel better. Others just need people to listen to them and give them obvious advice.

The one thing hindering your ability as a psychologist would be your inferior Fe. Your style will be more logical rather than pertaining to emotions. You'd probably have no trouble with inferior Fe behind the scenes though.
 

EditorOne

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"very wordy," "I am notorious for going well over the recommended essay length due to my need for thoroughness and consistency"

Well, just cross media writing right off your list, unless you can think of a newspaper or magazine that's surviving by being thorough and consistent. If, on the other hand, you can get right to the heart of an issue and explain/present it quickly and concisely, being a "general assignment" reporter for anything that emerges out of the ongoing collapse of traditional media forms has the advantage of falling into the "not boring because every day is different and you don't know what you'll be doing tomorrow" category.

There's no money in it, though.

You're probably right looking elsewhere. I'd not consider a career in illegal drugs, though, a lot of the street-corner pushers make about $4 an hour and have to live with their parents. The odds of getting to the top and raking it in without going to jail or getting shot are about the same as making it to Major League Baseball.

Bank robbery has a certain appealing directness.

A lot of the folks who run the world don't want to hear about an innovative idea, product or process unless it is accompanied by a spreadsheet showing initial investment, burn rate, return on investment after set periods of time, and a detailed (detailed, got that?) plan for making it happen. Even if you make it happen while they're not watching, and make an operation surpass its mundane goals by huge margins, your inability as an INTP to explain every step of what to you was an intuitive set of decisions means they'll probably stop you from doing whatever it was that created success because the lack of details on how you did it makes them extremely nervous, like you broke wind in church or something. Hard to believe, but I'll show you my battle scars sometime. :-) And no matter what, you're simply going to have to get used to doing things quickly. That's rather one of the easier obstacles to overcome, you just have to analyze your own processes and focus on the ones that are essential rather than self-indulgent Hamletizing to make you feel good.

In short, INTPs are ideally suited for jobs and professions no one has yet invented. In that sense it's a wide-open field. Be innovative and invent your own job. I bet some of us do.

It is possible that immersion in music could lead to a livelihood as a songwriter or music producer. The field would be constant, but every song would be a new experience. Goodness knows we could use some new songwriters and melody creators, I listened to five new songs on the radio tonight and they all sounded just the same.

I'm just kicking out ideas where you don't bet the house on just one thing only to find out that three years of intensity in a particular thing, whatever it is, might find you bored enough to strangle puppies. INTPs get bored, then the recreation drugs become the most interesting thing and things get sticky.

If it's any consolation, a lot of folks who study occupational trends say none of you younger folks will be holding a particular job very long. Technologies will become obsolete, economies will collapse, and you'll have to learn eight to ten jobs in your career. For my generation it was two to three. For my parents, it was one, you started with a company and stayed with it for 40 years. So maybe the boredom is going to not be a problem, although in the worst possible way.

All that is why, no matter what else is going on, you should master the skills of learning new things quickly, and it sounds like you're doing that. So I get to end on an upbeat note. :-)
 

giaduck

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you could always go into drugs (the legal kind) like doing research on new medicines to help people with? I don't know how you would feel about working at a pharmaceutical company.
 

Sensi Star

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you could always go into drugs (the legal kind) like doing research on new medicines to help people with? I don't know how you would feel about working at a pharmaceutical company.

I'm not too sure about working for a pharmaceutical company. I'd feel having sold my soul to the devil. I have always had a gripe with the way they market their questionable drugs furiously and lobby with doctors. And despite their legality, many of them are more toxic than street drugs.
 

QuickTwist

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Have you considered being an editor of some sorts?
 
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