I am definitely an introvert. I can deal with people, but I prefer to be by myself, and if I'm around people I need time to recharge, alone. I am definitely not the first person to raise her hand and certainly not the first person to speak up, not because I don't understand something (as one former professor thought), but because I process internally. That professor would keep asking me if I understood what he was talking about (he was my graduate advisor), and I kept telling him YES for the love of God I process things before I open my mouth, I mean I don't know how many times I had to tell him that. He was also one that didn't like to have conversation while he was working in the lab, like literally I would say something and he would tell me to concentrate on what I was doing. He was introverted, but I also think he couldn't do two things at once, like talk and work. Graduate school for me was a nightmare, mainly because I was a lab teacher and that meant I had to interact with 40 students at a time and teach a class. It exhausted me so much that I quit, I just couldn't do it anymore. It was an introvert's nightmare. Plus I hate teaching. I don't know why they ever put me in that position, I didn't want it, I wanted a research assistantship. But that means my advisor actually had to open his mouth and talk to the higher-ups, which he never did, or if he did he did it grudgingly. Grad school was such a nightmare for me that I burnt out a semester before I would have graduated. I was so incredibly unhappy, seriously, I don't remember being that unhappy since I was in high school. I got a medical withdrawal because I had threatened suicide (and I WAS serious) if they didn't get me out of those classes. I work in an environment now where I am mostly (95%) on my own, and I only have two coworkers who mainly work on their own. So much better than being surrounded by people who constantly want something out of you, whether it be teachers, students or customers (I worked in retail for a few years. I hated it.)