Recruitment & Retention | News
NCSU Will Match Students with Majors Based on Personality Type
- By Mike Hohenbrink
- 07/19/12
Students at North Carolina State University, both current and prospective, can now be matched to possible majors based on their Holland personality.
The effort, using Career Key's College Major Match service, is designed to improve student academic performance, decrease switching between majors, and improve graduation rates at the Raleigh-based school, which currently serves nearly 35,000 students.
The service works by matching careers based on the six Holland personality types. Developed by American psychologist John Holland, the classification scheme argues that individuals seek out and flourish in environments most suited for them.
The Holland types include:
- Realistic (doers);
- Investigative (thinkers);
- Artistic (creators);
- Social (helpers);
- Enterprising (persuaders); and
- Conventional (organizers).
Students who are "realistic" may perform best in fields such as fisheries or turfgrass management while "investigative" personalities may perform best in meteorology or geology, according to information released by the school.
For both current and prospective students, NCSU has launched a special Web page listing all of the school's majors classified by personality type, as well as by Career Key work group with links to further information
After taking a test that can be completed in 10 to 15 minutes via the Internet, students can explore the list of majors that best match their personality type and learn more about them.
The test can be accessed by current students on the majors Web page. Prospective students can take the test for a fee at the Career Key Web site. Residents of the state of North Carolina can take the test at the College Foundation of North Carolina Web site.
