ROHAN KENI | Reporter

In today’s college life, where assignments and deadlines seem never-ending, students still find opportunities to spend quality time with friends.  

When we spend time with our friends, we create memories which last for a lifetime.  However, besides creating memories, the time spent with friends could also teach us a lot more than what we realize and understand. 

At Lindenwood, people are not simple beings to understand.  Every individual is a lot more complicated and unique than what we think in our everyday lives. But nevertheless, society classifies people as either an extrovert or an introvert.    

Extroverts tend to have an outgoing nature and possess a high level of social skills, capable of connecting with any person at face value. The extroverted personality type can be seen as talkative, having plenty of information to share about numerous topics, thus functioning like walking, talking encyclopedias.  

On the other hand, introverts are ones who possess high-quality listening skills and tend to be the listeners in a conversation. The introverted personality type feels more comfortable focusing on the depth and quality of what the speaker has to say. Some tend to be socially awkward in public gatherings, finding it extremely difficult to mingle with a large group.  

Extrovert or introvert, our personalities, interests, goals, and qualities help us define who we are and most importantly, develop our character. 

However, in a world like today, where people hang out with friends and family to de-stress from stressful days, they fail to understand that meeting a different personality type could teach us a lesson. 

This lesson of realization I learned from my time at Lindenwood University: no matter what personality a person is, there is always something new and exciting to observe and learn from each other. 

The journal Psychology Today claims that many introverts seem to create misconceptions and assume that extroverts are just talkative people who can talk non-stop, speaking about useless things. 

However, according to the Time Magazine, introverts fail to realize that they could actually lose out on learning new ideas and trends by simply observing that though extroverts are talkative. Extroverts could potentially give new, innovative, and useful information to introverts.    

For instance, my roommate Simon Herndon, – who classifies himself as an introvert in nature, said “through constant observation” he can identify the character of a person.

Freshman Jeremy Lam, who is also an introvert, said that his high observation skills and unique ability to understand people has been vital in shaping the way he lives and understands other’s personalities. 

For extroverts, a BuzzFeed report said that many feel that spending too much leisure time with introverts simply show or prove how talkative and entertaining they are to introverts. 

Consequently, the BuzzFeed and Huffington Post also reported that extroverts fail to recognize the bright side of things. With some amount of introspection, extroverts could understand the actual amount of knowledge and information they hold in themselves, as well as look for further improvement.  

Freshman Biraj Singh said he feels that being an extrovert has more benefits than he realized. Singh said being an extrovert increases his confidence.

“I can explore more about life and people around me and also being socially active also helps in improving communication skills,” he said.   

Ultimately, we need to start realizing the importance of social relations. Meeting people is not just an interaction between friends, instead it’s a lesson of self-realization on how the different personality types, (introvert and extrovert) could actually help people learn fascinating things about themselves. They will not find this lesson in books but only through human connection.