Career crossroad/s - Psych Major

It is strange for those who claim an interest, and further, an education, in psychology to publicly discuss themselves in relation to the MBTI with such excitement. The issue is that the MBTI has been largely discredited by contemporary researchers, and has poor validity coefficients with real-world outcomes.

Anyway, it shouldn't be a black-and-white Money VS Passion thing going on here! Rather, there should be an in-between zone where both money and passion can be pursued simultaneously at their optimal levels. Often, what you get paid most for is going to be what you perform best at, and that's going to be informed by where your passions truly lie. Having said that, TS, my concern is that what's tying you down now isn't your passion, but some kind of a misdirection, or a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Passions are feelings, and they should lead you to personal growth and learning new competencies, and not encase you in a mould. It probably was the case for why you were excited on psychology in the first place, because you wanted to help people, and that led to your pursuit of a degree and volunteering and all that. But now, what it seems to me is that it's evolved into some sort of a feel-good crutch, and constraining you from acquiring new experiences.

I feel that it's great that you have the heart to help people. But that's not going to be enough. Rather, examining it properly, helping people is the vision; there's still going to be work to be done before that vision can be fulfilled, and it's what you call your passion actually that's what's going to help you get there and sustain you against the odds. In your case, identifying gaps in your profile one might suggest to work further on extraversion - we are working with people! We can't shun the objects of our study, we must show interest in them not just academically but on a personal level. No one is saying to go out and club, but to say that you exclusively want to sit behind a computer all day is a sign of a problem.

Also, as others have mentioned, further studies for professionalisation will demand quantitative proficiency - this has applied value too. Knowledge is constantly being produced from journals and cutting-edge operational research. You need to be able, as a practitioner, to understand and critique new research in their raw form years before they make their way into textbooks, if at all. That way, for your clients you can always ensure that your methods are relevant and incorporate the latest findings in psychology, to be ethical. Don't just say you can't do it! That's what passions are for - to help you get there.

Ultimately, your learning ability is going to be what determines your success, and your passion moderates that. Not your personality. Good luck with your job search.