It is up to each person to recognize his or her true preferences,” said Isabel Briggs Myers, one of the founders of the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) tool.
One year ago, a group of friends on campus who share interest in the MBTI started the MBTI club and have been meeting ever since. According to senior Heath Church, one of the leaders of the group, the club serves multiple functions.
“We created the club with three main goals in mind,” Church said. “The first goal is to educate people about the MBTI and the 16 possible types that you can score on the test. Our second goal is to help you understand how different types process the world and communicate differently. The final goal is to discuss our own personality theories that our members have and just have a great time hanging out and getting to know each other.”
The MBTI club has not become an official club and does not have any club fees, according to Church. The club is similar to other clubs on campus in that it builds new relationships, but it offers a unique approach to meeting new friends and sustaining the friendships based on the MBTI typing system.
“Once you get to know the personality types and the differences, you just get to know more about the other people around you and how to deal with them,” sophomore Cassidy Hopper said. “I joined a social club my freshman year and it’s cool and everything, but then I started going to the Myers-Briggs meetings last fall, and I started getting into learning about personalities so now I’m typing other people in my club and I’ve made more friends that way.”
The MBTI club embraces all personality types and wants its members to do the same. For fun, they have gotten together for hiking trips, bonfires, cookouts and movie nights where they have typed the main characters. According to sophomore Sam Klein, they vote on other activities to do based on the group’s interest.
“We learn the system, we enjoy the system and we try to be social about it,” Klein said. “The whole point is that it’s a social system.”
All students are welcome to attend the club meetings, which take place every Tuesday in Mabee room 203 at 7:15 p.m. Whether an extrovert or introvert, this club offers something for everyone.
“Just come to the meetings,” Klein said. “You learn what you’re good at and what you’re not so good at, and in the process you can actually begin to cut other people slack because in the process of building self respect it actually teaches you to respect other people. You begin to realize that your strengths may be their weaknesses and vice versa.”
