Internships

An internship is designed to allow the integration of classroom learning with real-life experience in psychology and related fields. It is intended to be a growth opportunity, not a repetition of previous work experience. Interns spend a minimum of six hours per week over a fifteen-week semester (total of at least ninety hours) at the internship site, for which they may earn three credits per semester. Students are responsible for finding internship placements, though the Department will make every effort to arrange placements for them. Generally, interns do not receive more than small stipends from the agencies in which they are placed.

Prerequisites for internships include the completion of at least twenty-one credits of the psychology major and senior status (or permission of the Department). The intern and the Internship Coordinator for the Department of Psychology, together with the site coordinator for the agency, develop an internship plan. The Department of Psychology must approve the plan before registration for the course can be completed. The student should complete a “Proposal for Internship” form, available from the Department of Psychology, which includes:

the goals of the internship
the specific learning and supervisory experiences to be provided by the service site
the location of the internship and the time commitment and schedule

After the plan is agreed upon, the student, the site coordinator and the Internship Coordinator for the Department of Psychology must sign the form.

Interns are expected to complete the following requirements:

Maintain a journal describing daily or weekly experiences, a record of hours worked and observations and comments on activities. This journal should be brought to all meetings with the Internship Coordinator. Meetings with the Internship Coordinator will generally be held biweekly. At the conclusion of the internship the journal is submitted to the Internship Coordinator.
Complete readings from books and articles assigned by either the site supervisor or the Internship Coordinator.
At the end of the internship write a paper comprehensively describing the internship activities, discussing their relation to the academic program and evaluating the internship. The paper should include a bibliography of material consulted for the internship activities. It should summarize what the intern has learned and their overall impression of how succesful the internship was.

Internship supervisors at the service sites complete a final evaluation of the student on a form provided by the Department. The Internship Coordinator of the Department of Psychology assigns the student’s final grade. This grade is based on the student’s attendance, fulfillment of the agreed-on requirements for the internship, supervisory meetings, quality of journal and paper and evaluation reports by the site supervisor.

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