Wednesday, October 15, 2014

MBTI of your typical PSU student?

We have a pretty big campus here in Happy Valley. There's a decent amount of people, I'd say. The size of our student body is conducive to large amounts of diversity. This includes ethnic, ideological, personal, and many other forms of diversity. Despite this, I believe that, somewhere, there is an archetypal Penn State student. Naturally, I decided to run this archetype through the MBTI personality test. Here is a rundown of a typical Penn State student through each type dichotomy in the test.

Extraverted/Introverted
This one is pretty obvious. Penn State is an annual contender for the #1 party school in the nation, after all. We are known across the country as a very social school. Even in the cafeteria, almost everyone is eating with someone else, yelling, and having a good time. Obviously, this isn't to say that every single Penn State student is a social butterfly. It is just the prevailing stereotype among our students.

Intuition/Sensing
This one should have been difficult, but after a bit of thinking, the prevalence of Sensing as opposed to Intuition in our student body. Penn State is a school absolutely boiling in tradition. Our most famous employee, Joe Paterno, was head coach for 45 years, for God's sake. Also, from personal experience, Penn State students tend to live in the moment. This also ties into the party-school stereotype that we definitely hold. Many kids here will do anything to have fun, sometimes at the expense of future goals. An Intuitive, especially a strong one, would often be too caught up in the past or the future to be able to handle the party-every-day lifestyle that many lead here.

Thinking/Feeling
This dichotomy is probably close to an even split, but I think it may SLIGHTLY lean toward Thinking. While there is a prevailing athleticism that many students have here, which points more toward Thinking, some parts of our culture are steeped in emotion. For example, the death of Joe Paterno brought more than one man in my family to tears, men who I had never before seen cry. Despite our emotional attachments, I think that we as a school tend to be a little more rational and facts-oriented than people-oriented. This is showcased by one of our most famous departments, the School of Engineering. Engineers are almost exclusively Thinkers as opposed to Feelers, and the fact that engineering majors are so popular here points to the notion that we are more of a rational campus.

Judging/Perceiving
Can we revisit Penn State's athletic focus? Athletes are overwhelmingly Perceivers, and,since many students here either are/were athletes or are interested in sports, we can make a conclusion. Not to say that we don't have Judging characteristics; PSU kids are definitely hard workers when it comes down to it. I just feel like the majority of the student body tends to be a little more lax about things in their life, among other attributes, therefore preferring Perceiving over Judging.

After this step-by-step analysis, I have come to the conclusion that the archetypal Penn State student is an ESTP. This makes a lot of sense, since ESTPs are adventurers, partyers, and, overall, people who like to experience life through their senses. This description makes me think of a typical student here, especially many of the ones I have met. I've also taken into account that the people that I find in the honors courses I am in--including this one--do not represent the population as a whole. If you have any thoughts, or just flat-out disagree with me about the assertions I made about a regular Penn Stater's personality, shout at me in the comment section!

2 comments:

  1. Great analysis. I like how you used your own knowledge about commonplaces to find the general personality type of a typical PSU student. Is it possible that most Americans are ESTP? I'd say that PSU is pretty indicative of American culture

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  2. This was very spot-on. I'm sure a vast majority would agree with your findings, considering we are a state school (and Penn State). While there is quite a depth of people, I believe this analysis is very effective in analyzing the typical "Penn Stater". Cheers.

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