College advice to younger INTPs from an older one
I have known, personally, four other INTPs in my life. We are all older, ranging from 25-28, and even though we are dissimilar in hobbies and some interests, we are all the same: we still have no idea what we are doing. We are supposed to have a firm grasp on our life direction because we are heading into our thirties, but that simply is not the case. As you see, itâs a long post, but I promise there are some insights to be gained.
From my small pool of INTPs, I have noticed two things that INTPs struggle with when pursuing a career: being told what society says we should be doing, and wanting to overachieve. Both play into the college role. Our society says go to college, get a degree. Of course we are on board! All that learning, books filled with unrestricted knowledge, studying at coffee houses, having an excuse to only work part time and having the power to schedule afternoon classes so you can sleep in to your heartâs desire. Jesus, this is my calling. All five of us went to college, yet only two of us, including myself, got a degree in the endâŚand it took years. About five years for both of us. Itâs disenchanting after a while. INTPs idealize college for the reasons I stated above, and then we realize how itâs filled with unnecessary work, horrible deadlines, and lots of stress just to learn something. Thatâs agony for us. Learning is something we love, so when stress is added to it, it becomes obsolete. A key part of our personality is extinguished. I am not saying this is true for all INTPs. Many, famously such as Einstein, made academia his career. Yet if most INTPs feel this way about college, then maybe something needs to be said about it.
So my first advice: donât go to college because society tells you to, and donât go to college because youâre enchanted by it. After all, do you really know what your sole interest is in at eighteen? I mean your lifelong interest in which you would love to dedicate yourself to for the rest of your life. I thought I did, but then I bounced around between classes, taking everything from Sumerian history to microbiology to even organic chemistry, purely because it was just all so fascinating. We two graduated INTPs from this small group both majored in history, in the end. Why? Personally, it was the easiest. By the time the fifth year of college came around, I was done with it. For my history classes all we had to do was read a book and then write something about it. The other INTP said it was the same for him. This might surprise a lot of MBTI fanatics, because INTPs are stereotyped as very scientific nerds.
Which leads me to my next advice: donât try to overachieve, especially with the sciences. A masters sounds great, doesnât it? A Ph.D. sounds damn right amazing. A doctor? Holy shit. Itâs so prestigious, a badge of honor which states that we are indeed very intelligent. It solidifies to the world what we already know about ourselves, that we are super intelligent and rational and have great insights to bequeath unto the world. I was a victim of this. I was a double major, doing everything I could trying to get into veterinary school. Thatâs a great gig, isnât it? Being known as a doctor, having that title by your name, and dealing with cute patients who couldnât speak to you but only just wanted to be petted and fed treats. I thought that was exactly what I wanted, but it wasnât. After interning at a vet clinic, I realized how horrible it was to be a veterinarian. My boss was a business owner, had lived in the same house in the same town with the same mortgage for thirty years, and his highlight of the week was always going to a dinner and a movie with his wife on Friday nights.
Talk about super SJ. No thanks.
After much retrospect and Tiâing, I realized what I really wanted was the prestigious badge of D.V.M. honor. I was trying to overachieve. The other graduated INTP was enchanted by the Ph.D. He wanted to be a professor. I fell into a depression after a while, and he talks about how he did too, because if we didnât go on to get masters and doctorates, then what the hell else were we gonna do?
This might be the rut you, as a younger INTP currently in college, might be experiencing. Let me be the first to tell you that college is not as exciting as it sounds, and you might have already discovered that. So what are you going to do? My advice is just to stay in, get that degree. Even if you switch it to history or english because itâs a little easier for introverts, just finish one. Your older self will thank you when you are applying for jobs. If you are a young INTP contemplating college, do this seriously. Very seriously and carefully. Contrary to popular belief, you do not need a degree to live a happy and productive life. My best and most favorite job ever was working at a dog daycare during college. I picked up vomit, dog shit, had to break up dog fights, but I also got to play with animals and have oxytocin releases by petting them, and I was left alone to my thoughts most of the time. I was paid eight an hour. The other INTP says his favorite job was a stocking books at a local bookstore. He was by himself and his thoughts, got to read a lot of the books he stocked, and had endless coffee at his disposal. He also got paid eight an hour. We always say how much we wish we could go back to those jobs. I guess we could try, but now we are overqualified to do them and probably wouldnât be hired.Â
I can personally tell you from experience that having a bachelors isnât that exciting. Graduating was underwhelming, actually. Both of us talk about how anticlimactic it was and how we felt like we didnât achieve anything special. I honestly get ten times more satisfaction watching my student loans deplete by the thousands than I ever did turning in an essay about Gram negative bacteria or studying about Jugurtha. Also, community college. Thatâs where itâs at. Donât be enchanted by universities. They sell themselves on their supposed prestigiousness, which can really be translated into, âWe are super competitive because we work our students into depression via endless deadlines and by shoving unnecessary knowledge down their throats, most of which they will never remember. But our price tag guarantees a high paying job if you graduate from us, which youâll need anyway to pay off all of your debt!â
Education doesnât buy happiness.
Last piece of advice? Do you, INTP, do you. Do what you do best and Ti the shit out of this. But more importantly, Ti the hell out of yourself and really ask yourself if college is for you. If itâs not, then who cares?
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