Therapy Internships and Lessons Learned
Finding Your "Good Fit"
There’s not many cases in life that we get to test drive before buying, but that is a perk of most behavioral health programs; test driving is required. Most people have a vision of their future career. I did. And my internships changed that. As an undergraduate Human Development and Family Studies major, I thought I wanted to work with children. I applied just like I was applying for a job, was matched with a social worker, and began observing home visits to monitor the care of children in low-income families. On day one I learned that this was not a good match for me. Without this information, I may have entered into a work environment that was unfulfilling for me or, worse, felt stuck! I was lucky to recognize this information very early on and quickly picked my next internship in a very different setting - an inpatient psychiatric facility for adults. I learned that I loved the population, but was a bit overwhelmed by the inpatient environment. Both of these experiences gave me useful information when applying to grad school and filtering out future jobs.
