Puzzle Pieces aka Johnson O'Connor Aptitude Test

Recently, I sat done to talk with the VP of our department about my job status and what I was thinking about the job and school, and what I was interested in working towards. I was not really looking forward to this conversation, because I never have any answers to give people. During the coarse of the conversation he told me about the Johnson O'Connor aptitude test, and how it might shed some light on the things I'm naturally good at. He told me it was a rather expensive test, $575.00!! What? No way was I going to be able to pay for something like that, which he said that it was free for DBU students because of a scholarship fund someone had set up. Well, I had nothing to loose by taking it, so that is exactly what I did. I think it did help me realize some things about myself and has given me a direction to focus on when looking at school and career choice.
The test was given in two separate parts, and then you set down with someone and talked over the results. All together this took about a day and a half to complete everything. I will try to tell you about some of the tests and what I found out about myself. If I went over all the tests this would be an extremely long and somewhat boring blog, if it's not already.
I took a quick test to see if I was color blind or not, but that was just an example of the kinds of tests I would be taking. One of the tests was about visual perception (graphoria). Basically, this test tells you if you are good at paperwork, if you can do paperwork with speed and accuracy. I did not score good on this, so an office job with lots of filing, inventory, etc. would not be a good fit for me. Divergent thinking (ideaphoria), is a test to measure the rate of the flow of your ideas. I scored fairly high on this so I should choose a job that will provide an outlet of my ideas. The inductive reasoning test was to see how quickly you could find the common element among heterogeneous ideas, observations or facts. They gave me a paper with blocks that had pictures in rows of five and you had to find the ones that went together in some way. I did not do well on this or on the analytical reasoning test. There were some numerical tests and I did not score well on those either. Well, you are probably thinking, "What did you score well on?". Spatial visualization was very high, which means that I can think/picture things in three dimensions. Auditory things were not my forte, but it wasn't terrible, just nor something I should consider career wise. There was a test in which a design was flashed on the screen for about 8 seconds and then you had about a minute to recreate it. The paper had dots on it so that helped out. I did really well on this test. I was also good with memorizing numbers, which I did not think I would be good at. HMMM.... well you never know with these things. There was a test to check what kind of fine motor skills you had. It was over tweezer and finger dexterity. I could go on and on because there were so many tests, but I will get to the things they told me as far as jobs and schooling for me.
Basically, I think in 3-D, good with color discrimination, have an artistic eye, and memorize designs well. I have a subjective personality, which means I like to work alone and don't like to depend on others to get the job done (very true). Career choices that fit my aptitudes are things like interior design, architecture, artist, or basically anything that deals with design. I was also told that I would probably work well in a place where I had an outflow of my ideas, and in a more independent environment. The other thing I found out that was interesting is I am cross dominate; my left eye is the dominate eye and I am right handed. The lady giving that test told me that you would find this trait in pitchers since if I were pitching I would use my right hand but see the pitch with my left eye. Really interesting test and I am glad I took it, because now I know what my talents are. The interesting thing is that these are the talents I've always had. You are born with aptitudes and schooling or how much you do something doesn't really change them. They told me that if I were to take the test again later in life there might be a few variations, but my aptitudes would be the same.
Overall, this was a great experience for me. They gave me a lot of ideas and resources I can use when thinking about jobs and schooling. The websites they gave me I didn't know existed. I can also go back for a follow up within a year, and it would be free. This has just really been eye opening for me in finally having a solid knowledge of what my talents are. It gives me a starting place so that I might be able to figure out a direction to take in my life career wise.
Now you know a little (or maybe more that you want) more about me. Now to figure out what to do with this knowledge, and come up with a direction to start working towards. Hope this didn't put you to sleep. Don't feel bad if this wasn't interesting and you skimmed it all. :) Totally understand. Plus it's really hard to explain things without visual aides. :)