Psychology Internships

Internships through the Psychology department are intended to help Boise State University students to achieve valuable training and work experiences, as well as to provide needed assistance to social service organizations and other agencies to help them achieve their goals.

What Might I Do With An Internship?

The internship opportunities available to psychology students are vast, and continue to expand. Because psychology is described as the "scientific study of thought, feeling, and behavior" and psychology students are typically well trained in this area of study, interns from the psychology department can successfully fill many roles and make great contributions to many agencies and to the people these agencies serve. Past psychology students have worked closely with agencies treating people experiencing various types of psychological difficulties, developmental disabilities, and life trauma. Others have worked with children from families in poverty, the homeless, and university students. Newer opportunities exist to help place interns with organizations that serve seniors, refugees, and prisoners and parolees, among others. In short, there are a number of standing partnerships in place that offer internship opportunities for psychology students (see the attached list of agencies). Students interested in internships with other agencies (i.e., those without a standing partnership with the Psychology department or BSU) can often pursue these opportunities after discussing them with the internship coordinator (Dr. McDonald).

How Do I Enroll?

The procedure for beginning an internship is rather simple. First, an interested student should contact Dr. McDonald in the psychology department (E-622; 426-2425). Dr. McDonald and the student can discuss the student's interests, and he will provide some possible contacts for internships at agencies and organizations consistent with the student's interests. Next, the student should contact the relevant person at the agency or agencies that the student is interested in working with. Typically, the contact person at the agency will meet with the student to discuss internship possibilities. If the student and the contact person at the agency agree to an internship for the student, relevant paperwork available from Dr. McDonald will be completed to initiate the internship.

The paperwork required to begin an internship consists of several forms. One is a standard university form to be completed by the student and the internship coordinator, and must be signed by the cooperating agency supervisor (the person who will be supervising the intern at the relevant agency). This form establishes where the student will be completing the internship, the number of credit hours requested, and whether the student wishes to receive a letter grade for his or her internship (the other option is to complete the internship for pass/fail). The other form completed establishes some guidelines for the internship and specifies more completely what the student will be doing for internship credit.

Internship Requirements And Grades

The hours requirements for internships are as follows: a student must complete 45 hours of work at an internship site for a one-credit internship, 90 hours for a two-credit internship, and 135 hours for a three-credit internship. The student and the cooperating agency supervisor are responsible for developing a schedule that will help the student meet the hours requirement for the number of credits requested.

Internship grades are determined by several factors. First, near the end of the semester, the cooperating agency supervisor will be asked to recommend a grade for the student who completed the internship, based on his or her observations of the student's performance. Second, the student will turn in a journal documenting their experiences during the internship, and the material provided in the journal will also affect the grade that is ultimately assigned by the internship coordinator. Journals of extraordinary quality may allow for final grades higher than those recommended by the cooperating agency supervisor, and mediocre or low quality journals may result in poorer grades than those suggested by the cooperating agency supervisor.

The internship journal may be hand-written (neatly and legibly) in a notebook or loose-leaf binder, or may be typed. It should document, week-by-week, the student's experiences at his or her internship site, and should also reflect on how these experiences relate to the field of psychology. Weekly entries do not have to be tremendously long, but they should be sufficiently lengthy to communicate the duties performed by the student, and to comment on how these experiences have affected the student's understanding of human thought, feeling, and behavior. Completed journals must be submitted to Dr. McDonald no later than Friday December 12 to receive credit.

I am glad that you are considering an internship through the psychology department. Interns routinely help important agencies complete their work in a timely, responsible fashion, and also provide valuable assistance to the clients of these agencies. Furthermore, students who complete internships gain quality work experiences and build their resumes and vitae, both of which are invaluable in helping psychology graduates attain career opportunities and graduate school admissions.

Contact Information

Please feel free to contact me to learn about specific internship possibilities or to discuss questions or concerns about internships.