Welcome to the Internship Experience

Welcome to the Internship Experience! This web site will act as a guide to help you identify and secure an internship that meets your needs and the program's requirements.

The internship experience is a capstone opportunity in your graduation program. Truly, it is one of the graduate experiences where you can put into practice all your graduate training and development. As a faculty, we encourage you to do just that. In addition, the internship site should be a place where you are afforded the opportunity to continue to develop your professional identity and skills. In light of this ultimate goal for internship, it would be helpful to keep the following suggestions in mind as you seek out and decide on the internship site that best meets your professional goals.

First, the internship site should represent the type of work site you wish to work in after graduation. Obviously this strategy will provide you with more appropriate experiences in light of your career objectives and possibly make you more marketable when you seek employment. The best possible scenario is to obtain an internship at the place or site at which you wish to be employed after graduation (if in fact a permanent position is available). In this case the personnel at the site will be familiar with your work and your fit with their organization.

Second, as previously stated the internship experience needs to provide opportunities for you to continue to develop your professional skills and identity as a counselor. Therefore, during the internship site interview it will be important for you to identify the specific experiences in which you wish to participate. The more specific you can be the better you and the site personnel can determine whether the site offers a good match.

Third, it is important to think about the type of supervision you wish to receive. Some supervisors will be willing to listen to tapes, co-lead a group, provide live supervision, provide additional training etc. The type of supervision the site supervisor is willing to provide is also an important issue to discuss during the internship interview.