# INTJ needing advice over career options



## Miss Nightingale (Aug 10, 2013)

Greetings to you all. I am a young INTJ 5w4 who is in her first year of chemical engineering, and I must say that it has been quite stressful so far. Theoretically, the course isn't that difficult; I grasp the different concepts easily (I love the maths and sciences) but my grades so far have been barely average, to the point where I'm already worried over whether I'll eventually come to fail any of my subjects, and I believe that there is a good possibility of that happening. 

When I first started this course, I was happy and satisfied. Abstract reasoning has always appealed to me and I've always been interested in chemistry. I liked reading about its general topics, but nowadays, I find myself losing interest in it. I'll try, or rather, force myself to read the textbook, but once I start reading on some topics, all I feel is anxiety. I think the thought of it being with me for the rest of my life if I continue to study it has finally hit me, and I feel really anxious just thinking about it. 

I have consulted my ENTJ father over this matter. He thinks that I'm taking the whole thing seriously, and that perhaps I feel greatly overwhelmed by the new changes in curriculum. I am not entirely sure if what he is saying is correct, perhaps a part of it is......I mean, I have expressed feelings of agony over the future with this field of study sticking with me. I would definitely read a book about physics/chemistry out of free time, but not when it's forced. Also, I am not interested in the detailed aspects of it. All I feel is anxiety once I start reading about it. 

I've thought about switching to computer science. I've heard about it, and I think it appeals to my strengths (analyzing, troubleshooting, doing algorithms) but I fear that if I enter into it, I'll fall behind because of my _complete lack of experience_ in programming. I don't even know the basics, to be honest. It wasn't part of our curriculum in high school. I've only done online algorithms for fun one time, and I truly enjoyed it, though. 

Also, I'd like to know if I would fit this field better compared to, say, computer engineering. However, with my experiences in chemical engineering, the idea of the same thing happening if I switch courses agitates me. Who knows if I'll love it as I go on? What if I start feeling the anxiety again as I did with chemical engineering? I wouldn't want to waste time and money, but this field sounds really appealing. I would really like a field that has heavy mathematics, and I especially like arithmetic, plus I can be quite artistic. 

Whether any of you reading this have gone through a similar state before, I'd like to know how you got through, how you solved your problems, and why.


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## ninjahitsawall (Feb 1, 2013)

I can relate to a lot of what you're talking about. It's taking me a little longer than it should to finish undergrad because I kept having freakouts and trouble giving a crap about my grades, taking time off etc. I feel that once I'm doing something in the academic setting it feels very forced and then I get overwhelmed and it's as if I've lost any interest/passion towards the subject. At the same time it has always seemed that my interest (biomedical research, neuroscience) requires a doctoral degree in order to have any reasonable level of independence in my career. However I am not sure I can tolerate that much more hoop-jumping and "being controlled" (what it feels like to me) in academia -- this is largely what contributed to a lot of my freaking out.

I also didn't find the one computer science course I took to be enjoyable because it was a lot of memorizing and the assignments were basically typing out really technical stuff (so it seemed kind of the opposite of abstract reasoning.) I enjoy working with computers and learning how they work as a hobby, and generally I can pick up on the concepts of how they operate almost automatically.. but I don't think I'd enjoy making a living from it. So, I don't know if that was just the one course I took or if that's how compsci in general is taught. This is the same issue I've had with most science classes (mostly biology) since I started college, though. The format of the lectures and such is not very compatible with the way that I think. I guess I have to have the principles in mind before learning the material, otherwise my mind just can't absorb that many specifics and make meaningful sense of them. 

Over time it's made me kind of disillusioned about the entire education system because I often feel that I learn so much more (in less time) by exploring topics on my own, than I do by completing a set of requirements for a diploma. :-/

Sometimes if you know nothing about a subject that might make you more motivated to learn... I mean I have noticed with myself sometimes it's when I have too much knowledge on a topic that I kind of fall behind because I lose interest. 

I have that same concern about losing interest in things, it's funny how my main issue with school is usually a concern about lacking passion and nothing to do with actually understanding the material. If my interest is lacking it's like I've suddenly become stupid lol.

I think you can start out just trying out computer science and if you don't like one or two courses that would indicate it's not a good fit for you. Are you under a time pressure to make this decision?

Anyway, I dunno how helpful any of this actually is other than to say that I can relate.


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## snapplez728 (Aug 2, 2014)

I think computer engineering has a promising future. Anything with engineering is really the way to go in terms of job prospects. Chemical engineering is definitely harder than computer engineering which in turn is much harder than computer science. Computer science is really all about programming. But computer engineering is about the actual design of the components. 

Check this website out: Computer Science vs. Computer Engineering: What’s the Difference? | Faculty Forum

"Consider an iPhone. Apple employs both Computer Scientists and Computer Engineers to design each new version of the iPhone. Computer Engineers (and Electrical Engineers) designed the chips that house the integrated circuits that make the iPhone’s various components (cell radio, screen, controls, memory, microprocessor) function, and they figured out how to get the various components to work with each other. That involves looking at the device at both the microscopic level and the integrated systems level. Computer Scientists wrote the operating system that manages the memory and concurrently running applications, the apps in the app store that run on top of that operating system, the packing and unpacking of data into packets for network communication and the encrypting of data so that prying eyes can’t see it. The computer scientists provide the glue pieces that bring turn the computer engineers’ beginning product – the component designs – into the computer engineers’ end product – the device on which people text, browse the web, and play Angry Birds.

From this example, it is easy to imagine, with so much dependence on each other’s functions for realizing a finished product, why there is significant overlap in the coursework Computer Engineers and Computer Scientists take, and in the career opportunities they pursue."

My INTP brother is majoring in Chemistry and minoring in Computer Science but at first he was going for a double major. 

Good luck!


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