As I have so many friends and family who support me and are interested in what happens with internship, I decided it would be easiest to create a blog and update it as I go through my travels and interviews.
For my non-clinical psych readers (which is many of you), I will start by giving a brief rundown of what this whole thing is about. Part of the graduate training to become a clinical psychologist is to complete an internship at another site besides the school you go to. There is a governing body that controls the whole application process for internships. Everyone completes a basic application that goes to all of the sites they apply to, and the sites then contact those students whom they would like to invite for an interview. Once all interviews are completed, both the students and the internship sites rank each other as to who was their favorites. These rankings are submitted to the governing body who then conducts some sort of mathematical calculation and "matches" people to internship positions. You'll see that the timer above is counting down to match day 2010! There is an element of luck to the match, and many, many more students applying than internship positions available. This means that every year many people (about 20% last year) do not match to an internship. That happened to me last year. So this year I had to re-apply and start all over again. This is also why I am in D.C. right now, because I had another whole year with nothing to do before applying to internships for the second time. Plus it is an excellent resume booster.
This year, I applied to 15 internship sites, which is pretty standard. I am now in the phase of being invited for interviews and it has gone well so far. I have gotten interviews at the Hospitals & Clinics of Minnesota (Minneapolis, MN), Children's Hospital of Detroit (Detroit, MI), Geisinger Medical Center (Danville, PA), and duPont Hospital for Children (Wilmington, DE). My first interview is in Detroit on December 14th and then in Minnesota on Dec 17th. It's coming up fast! Most of the interviews are held during the month of January, however.
I will be updating this rather than sending out mass emails, so check back often for updates. Also, you can "subscribe" to the blog (see box on the right side of this page) and I think it will send out emails whenever I make a new post.
Thank you for all of your support up to this point, I never would have made it here without you!
