Making the Most of Your Internship Year
Start Finding Ways to Set Yourself Apart from the Crowd
by Dr. John T. Carlsen

If you are not careful, your entire internship might slip by before you know what happened: You might reach the end of the year without realizing that you failed to take advantage of all the opportunities you have available.  If you are one of the few interns whose program feels tailor-made to your training needs, consider yourself fortunate. Your supervisors will probably develop your unique gifts and fill most of your training gaps without much feedback from you.

If you are like most interns, however, you can probably only count on receiving the most basic training necessary to prepare you for state licensure.  It is entirely up to you to make sure that you develop the specialized skills and knowledge you need to practice in your areas of special interest. Although interviewers asked you to articulate your training goals when you applied and interviewed for this position, their commitment to your unique needs and interests might have ended right there.   Most interviewers have short memories.  You can assume that their memories of how you defined your training goals are only superficial.

Therefore, if you want to stand out from the competition as you search for post-doctoral employment - you need to take the matter into your own hands.  That is, you might have to rely more heavily on your own initiative in broadening your competence - and moving beyond basic clinical training.

If you know that you want to develop advanced skills or knowledge in a particular area, keep your eyes and ears open to non-traditional opportunities throughout the coming months. You might be surprised to learn about unpublicized opportunities to tailor your internship training to your specific interests.

My own experience serves as an example of what is possible if you assert your individual needs. Initially, I chose an internship in a university counseling center to broaden my skills beyond traditional psychotherapy. Having previously created and conducted workshops, I knew that I wanted to sharpen my skills in both areas. Although the existing program required me to develop and present some programs for students, I wanted to sharpen my skills further and gain exposure to other university populations as well.

In the back of my mind as I wrote applications, I had imagined that training in a large university campus might offer experiences not readily available in other settings. Ironically, our training director informed us at mid-year that the summer months would bring a reduced need for therapy because fewer students would be on campus. She proposed that we could use up to twenty percent of our time to finish our dissertations or arrange additional training somewhere else on campus.  Because I was well on the way to completing and defending my dissertation, I decided to explore this second option instead.

Responding to my request, she linked me with the director of the university’s office of training and career development. After a brief meeting, I submitted a written proposal for this "practicum" experience since no one before me had implemented or even explored this idea.. Within a few weeks, we confirmed an arrangement that I would work in that office one day a week to develop a workshop on diversity in the workplace. In exchange for the use of their resource library and computer, I would receive individual supervision from one of the staff trainers on workshop planning and design. The staff and I would have joint ownership of the finished workshop and could use it however we wished in the future.

Besides developing a pilot version of this half-day workshop, I received permission to test it with university faculty and staff. After I finished running the pilot workshop, my supervisor offered to meet with participants (I was not present) to obtain their overall feedback on my performance as a trainer. She later shared their comments with me privately.

Looking back, I realize the importance of taking this initiative during my internship year:  If I had waited until after graduation, the extra time, energy, and costs required to develop such a unique training experience would have seemed too overwhelming (not to mention expensive and time-consuming), so I most likely would not have pursued it.  However, by taking advantage of my direct access to specialists during internship, I not only expanded my knowledge and expertise, but also charted a path for future interns interested in developing similar qualifications.  My fellow interns arranged similar customized training experiences in neuropsychological assessment at one of the hospitals and cross-cultural outreach and programming through the university’s office of international students.

Equally important was the fact that, by leaving behind an innovative training idea, I probably strengthened my professional reputation in the eyes of my training director.  This was probably a shrewd move:  My training director would not only provide me with letters of recommendation for jobs . . . she would provide the primary signature on my application for state licensure.  

Open Your Eyes to Make the Most of a Challenging Year

Internship is a time like no other during the career of a psychologist. As an intern, every graduate student works very hard - for very little money - to fulfill the requirements for entering this challenging profession.  Throughout my years of training, I have kept these thoughts in mind as I approached each new training experience, especially when it fell short of meeting my overall professional goals. By keeping my eyes and ears open, I have often found learning opportunities outside the traditional boundaries.