College is an opportune time to learn more about not only your career but to grow in character as well. Forming new friendships, working on stressful projects and papers, and spending time in community all contribute to years of figuring out who you are, how you communicate, how to succeed, and to discover your personality in college.
College is the time you change the most. You are living on your own and trying to navigate a new world of responsibility, time and money management, relationship building, and so many more things.
What is personality anyway?
Your personality is a combination of characteristics and qualities that form who you are as a person. There are a lot of aspects that make up these characteristics such as the community you grew up in, family influence, and cultural background.
A big piece of our personality is related to our faith. So choosing a college that supports your faith and lifestyle is a really important part in the development of you and your personality.
Developing your personality is something that happens naturally, but being intentional to learn more about who you are and how you work in the world can be a very helpful tool in navigating life.
Here are some tips and tools in discovering your personality type!
Top 4 personality-discovery tools
Strengthsfinder
Strengthsfinder was developed by Don Clifton and is one of the most popular personality discovering tools, especially within professional workspaces or team dynamics. The Strengthsfinder test asks you a series of questions and then gives you your top five strengths according to how you answered the questions. This is helpful in discovering what you are naturally good at, learning how to develop your talents, and improving self-awareness.
The 34 strengths in this tool are sorted into four primary categories:
- Execution
- Strategic
- Relational
- Influencing
After taking the Strengthsfinder assessment, you’ll be able to see how your strengths are distributed between these categories. This will give you a better sense of how you can leverage your strengths within team our even college class dynamics.
Enneagram
The Enneagram is a personality test that recently gained a lot of popularity and uses numbers to designate each type of personality. The Enneagram was originally meant to be a self-identifying test, where you read through all nine types and then distinguish which type resonates the most with you.
With its recent popularity, there are more and more online tests available to help you also discover what type you are (although we would still recommend self-identifying). The enneagram is vast in the information it has to offer, but its most popular feature is that it helps you identify your personality tendencies during times of health and stress, which can be really helpful in everyday life and interactions with other people. This feature is unique from many other personality tests.
The Enneagram also helps you to identify a “wing” personality type that you might lean into in different situations. Because of its complexity and depth, the Enneagram provides great opportunities for discussion and team building in college, in the workplace, and in ministry.
Myers Briggs
The purpose of the Myers Briggs test is to take a personality inventory that helps to identify a person’s strengths and preferences. The Myers Briggs test will give you a series of questions, also known as a “personality inventory” and based on the answers to the questions people are identified as having one of 16 personality types.
Once you have identified which personality type you are, you can being researching more about your type to further understand things like strengths, weaknesses, possible career preferences, and compatibility with other people.
Read our blog post about which major might be compatible with your Myers Briggs type.
DiSC Profiles
The DiSC profile is a non-judgmental tool that is used to differentiate people’s behavioral differences. The process requires you to complete a series of questions and it writes up a full report about your personality and behavior, as well as, tips related to working with people of other behavioral tendencies.
This is popular with a team dynamic since it relies on discussion and comparison to further help understand yourself and others. The DiSC profile model can you you and your team increase self-awareness, learn how to respond to conflict with others, improve working relationships, etc.
Understand your personality; learn to succeed
Understanding your personality can help you be a better student, employee, significant other, friend, etc. You learn more about your personality tendencies, areas of strengths and weaknesses, how to communicate more clearly, and what career paths/life choices you are inclined to excel at. Taking one or all of these personality tests can you discover more about your personality and how you exist within the world.
Want to learn more about discovering your personality type in college?
Apply your personality discovery to the process of choosing a major.
Download our one sheet to discover the best major for you according to your Myers Briggs type!
