St Olaf Psychology Internships
Thanks to the St. Olaf Summer Undergraduate Research Experience (SOSURE) grant, I had the wonderful opportunity to work with Professor Mary Carlsen of the Department of Social Work and Family Studies in the summer of 2007.
Our applied research study has examined elements of social work practice in end-of-life care, namely the roles and responsibilities, core principles and facilitators/barriers of practice for social workers. Professor Carlsen and I are co-authoring an article for submission to a social work journal in end-of-life care that provides an informative description of these elements of practice. Individually, I presented on select findings of our research at our Summer Undergraduate Research Experience Poster Symposium.
My research examined facilitators of social work practice in end-of-life settings in England. I initially conducted a literature review. Using methods of qualitative analysis, I then coded 21 hospice social worker interviews. My poster presentation included the results of the literature review, my research methodology, the findings of the data analysis and implications for social work education, practice and research. Additionally, I am co-authoring a paper with Mary Carlsen based on the research results.
I would strongly recommend this program to other students! The experience of such research is not only an ongoing learning process, but an opportunity that opens doors you may not know even existed. Being published at 20 years old is significant in and of itself and potential rests for a spring presentation with Professor Carlsen at a national social work conference. This experience gave me a window into a "real world" job, working 40 hours/week, plus overtime for any finishing touches.
As a psychology major this research provided an opportunity to learn about a field of practice of which I possessed limited knowledge. I brought fresh ideas to our qualitative analysis and through researching, discovered a passion for learning about individual motivations, valued principles and potential improvements for elements in end-of-life social work practice. I am truly grateful for this research experience and for both the faculty and student connections developed within this multi-disciplinary summer research program. To collaborate with a well-established St. Olaf faculty member and produce work that will be beneficial to ongoing research studies and practice is both flattering and fulfilling.
Laura Geczy
I did a research internship at the VA Medical Center in Oklahoma City and worked primarily with the REACH program (Reaching out to Educate and Assist Caring Healthy families) during the summer of 2007. The REACH program is a psychoeducational program for veterans and a support person of the veterans that was started in the summer of 2006. It is based off research that shows that if people with serious mental illnesses (such as PTSD, schizophrenia, bipolar, depression, etc.) have a support person involved in their treatment, then the patient will have better medication compliance, have fewer hospitalizations, have more positive feelings, etc. The goal of the REACH program is to educate veterans and their support person, who is usually a spouse or other family member, about the veteran’s disorder in three phases. They taught such things as PTSD and depression management or schizophrenia and communication skills or bipolar and problem solving skills.
After completing each phase the veteran and the support person filled out a long questionnaire that covered such things as relationship satisfaction, feelings of self-efficacy, medication compliance, etc. My job was to record the answers from these questionnaires into the computer. The REACH team used this information to show in what ways the program was working so that it could be implemented in other VA hospitals. I also attended several meetings with veterans and support people, usually on the inpatient psychiatric ward. I saw at least half a dozen different presentations of schizophrenia while on the inpatient ward, which made me realize that learning about disorders, such as schizophrenia, in the classroom or in a text book is very different from actually experiencing the disorders in real people. I also attended several of the Phase II meetings and heard what people with these mental disorders are struggling with and what the support person, who has to live with someone with a mental illness, has to deal with. Finally, I had the opportunity to talk with psychologists who have different focuses within psychology. For instance, I met with a psychologist who works solely with veterans with substance abuse problems, with a psychologist who only does administrative work, and with a psychologist who primarily does family and marriage counseling. Meeting with these psychologists helped me to realize what I did and did not want to do. I knew that I wanted to practice clinical psychology, but I didn’t realize until that summer that I did not want to work with geriatric patients, for instance.
I found out about this internship through my dad, who works at the VA in Oklahoma City, and I would recommend doing an internship in a large hospital if you’re interested in clinical psychology, especially if you want to go to grad school. It’s a great opportunity to see many different ways in which psychology is utilized. The classes I found the most useful were Abnormal Psychology, which helped me to understand more clearly the disorders that the veterans were dealing with, and Research Methods, which helped me to understand the research process.
I did an internship with speech pathologists in Anoka-Hennepin
school district's Early Childhood Special Education program. I discovered
this opportunity through St. Olaf's online alumni directory. This
was a very good resource as many St. Olaf alums are happy to provide
opportunities for students. Because I was working with children,
courses in developmental psychology provided some relevant background
information. Linguistics courses were also helpful in understanding
what was going on because so much revolved around speech and language.
I told my site supervisor that I was really interested in seeing
speech pathologists in a wide variety of settings. I got to see
all stages of the process from screening and evaluation of children
for speech and language disorders through treatment. Most of the
children I saw were between 3-5 years old. Some had multiple disabilities
(including autism and hearing impairments) while others only had
trouble with speech and language. I was also able to visit elementary
schools in the district to get a different perspective on how older
children receive treatment for speech and language disorders. On
the other end of the spectrum I also got to go on home visits with
a clinician who worked with children from birth to three years of
age.
Being in such a large school district was helpful because my site
supervisor had many connections allowing me to experience a variety
of settings. I even got to observe a cleft palate clinic at the
U of M as a perspective on speech pathology in a medical setting.
This internship experience helped to solidify my plans of going
to graduate school for speech pathology after graduating from St.
Olaf. It was very valuable to be able to see what it would be like
to be a speech pathologist in a practical setting. If there is anyone
who is considering going into speech pathology I would highly reccommend
doing an internship. There is currently a big shortage in the field,
and everyone is very welcoming and encouraging. It can take some
work to find a site for an internship, but it is well worth it.
For 10 weeks in the summer of 2005 I was an Intern Resident Counselor at Advent Group Ministries. AGM is a Christian non-profit social services agency in San Jose, California that offers clinical counseling, foster homes, and group recovery homes for teenage addicts and alcoholics. Three of the homes are girls’ homes and 3 of the homes are boys’ homes. I worked as a live-in staff in one of the boys’ homes with the title of Intern Resident Counselor. I heard about this internship opportunity when I met one of the Resident Counselors during a visit to my home in Los Altos, California.
AGM’s recovery home program takes clients ages 13 to 18 from
Santa Clara County or a nearby county in California. Virtually all
of the clients are placed in the homes by the court and are on criminal
probation. However, potential clients are screened by our case workers
to make sure that they are clinical addicts/alcoholics and are not
a danger to themselves and others. The program’s concept of
drug and alcohol recovery is modeled after 12 step programs such
as Alcoholics Anonymous and Narcotics Anonymous and the clients’
advancement in the program is contingent on their working through
the 12 steps. AGM employs professionals such as Addictions Counselors,
Therapists, Case Workers, and Resident Counselors and utilizes community
resources such as AA/NA programs and churches to help the clients
succeed in the program.
As an Intern Resident Counselor I lived in the home four days a
week, shadowed the regular Resident Counselor, and, in stages, gradually
assumed all his responsibilities in the home. A Resident Counselor’s
daily responsibilities include cooking meals, dispensing any medications
the boys/girls might have, driving them to and from the on-site
school and Alcoholics/Narcotics Anonymous meetings, making sure
they do their daily chores, and giving consequences, such as extra
chores and loss of privileges for negative behavior. But most importantly,
a Resident Counselor establishes a relationship of trust and respect
with the clients through which recovery can occur. After eight weeks
of learning these responsibilities I ran the home on my own for
one weekend while the regular staff went on a retreat to take a
much needed break. The interns at each of the other six houses did
the same.
The experience was a great chance to practice some basic principles
in counseling such as reflective listening and giving unconditional
positive regard. It was also interesting to see the relationship
between state institutions, such as courts, and a psychological
treatment facility. I would recommend this internship to anyone
interested in adolescent psychology, the psychology of substance
abuse, juvenile delinquency and justice, urban studies, social work
or Christian ministry and desiring to learn how to deal effectively
with troubled teens.
I spent my summer in Washington D.C. as a research assistant for
the George Washington University psychology department. The study
involved preventing postpartum depression among a largely Hispanic
population. I discovered this internship by emailing psychology
faculty at all of the major universities in the D.C. area and asking
if they had any research positions available. Unfortunately there
were very few St. Olaf alumni involved in psychology in D.C., otherwise
the alumni directory would have been an excellent resource.
My goal was to obtain more experience in all aspects of psychology
research. This internship really facilitated my objective by allowing
me to conduct my own research as well as help out with the professor’s
project. My own research involved collecting data from pregnant
Hispanic women’s medical charts. From there I looked at the
prevalence and risk factors associated with maternal depression.
For the professor’s project, I entered data, learned how to
submit an IRB, and performed various research-related tasks.
I found my statistics courses to be very useful in this study because
I worked so closely with the data. Moreover, having developmental
psychology was helpful since the research dealt with pregnancy and
the postpartum period. My independent study helping Dana Gross with
her research also provided me with a foundation on which to build
my own research project. Through the internship, I was able to determine
which area of psychology I want to pursue and gain valuable research
experience needed for grad school.
If you’re thinking about going to grad school for psychology,
I would definitely recommend doing an internship. It can really
help you decide whether that area of psychology is a good match
for you, and often you discover aspects about the job that you didn’t
know about or hadn’t considered. If you’re thinking about
clinical psychology, I would especially encourage you to get an
internship doing research. It’s a competitive field and having
research experience will be incredibly helpful.
