My internship was unlike anyone else’s, it entailed me going out and doing research on my field. The career that I was interested in was psychology, and unfortunately I could not intern with psychologists. Due to the confidentiality reasons I could not sit in on one-on-one psychology meetings. Although I still required a mentor and her name was Tanya Keppler.  She worked at the Wolf Group on Soscol Avenue. Every 2 weeks I would go meet with her and check-in to let her know what was going on with me and afterwards she would sign off hours that I did.

My tasks were a bit simple I was to do any kind of research that would help me find out more information about psychology. During my research method, I also did a couple of interviews with some psychologists. I would ask them questions like, what it was like for them going through college, and why they wanted to become a psychologist. I interview about 3 psychologists and the interviews were very informal. I interviewed Dr. Wolf of the Wolf Group, and he gave me some valuable information, such as me being a possible intern during my years in college. I have also been attending a stress relief counseling group as an observer and as a participant.
Inside the stress relief group we just relax and Jessica, who is in charge of the group, usually asks us how we are doing, and how things are going. It’s pretty laid back, we show up to the room where it’s located and we eat our lunches and start conversations. We talk about our week and if we have any problems that have been going on that are bothering us. It’s a bit helpful; it helps me work things out and helps me relax. I have noticed a bit that goes on in the room. I see that we have all created a connection between all of us that are in that room. We have shared a lot of really touching things and we have just created a bond between all of us.

Now with the information that I have received I am going to try to plan out my future plans. When I head into college I will look into taking classes like statistics because I was told that if I want to head into the research part of the psychology field, then I would want to continue with math such as statistics. I am also going to explore some of the psychology classes, just for my personal gain. As I have been going through this project, I keep recalling Dr. Wolf telling me that I should enjoy what I do and that psychology isn’t as simple as I may think. I am thinking to myself that, I enjoy helping people when they need someone to talk to and that if it’s going to take possibly ten years to make that my career then I am committed to completing what I need to do. In the small counseling groups I have been viewing on how a group like that works together. It seems to work well if an individual is not up for one-on-one sessions with a psychologist. There is a lot of relations between people in groups like that, and I’ve also noticed that the conductor of the group won’t always says something, but when they do it’s like they are in a sense explaining how a person could be feeling, or just explaining the situation. I’ve noticed that you have to be calm and prepared for anything in a group like that.

Doing all of this work and finding all of this information has made me more informed of course, but it hasn’t really changed my choice in whether going into psychology or not. I am actually looking forward to getting through school, getting my Ph. D, and opening my own office. Although going to school for ten more years will be a tough, but with my dedication I know that I won’t give up that dream. Throughout this entire project, I was also reading a book, called “Love’s Executioner, and Other Psychological Tales.” Thanks to this book I was able to get a good insight on not only what goes on in a one-on-one session, but what conflicts go on inside of a psychologists mind.

As I went through my internship experience, I couldn’t help but notice some of the New Tech learning outcomes tie into some of my work. With the help of my Oral Communication, I was able to have great interviews with the psychologist. Some others were also, critical thinking, written communication and technology literacy. With the use of my critical thinking and the written communication skill, I was able to think and create some intriguing questions for my interviewees. The technology literacy was basically knowing how to get research done, and what websites to look at and really the only time I used technology was when I did research. My whole internship involved the outcome of curricular literacy because that’s what the internship was really about, me just learning about psychology.

For my evaluation process, I see myself as somewhat of a B to a B-. During a majority of this time; I was pretty on top of everything, got my work done and ready to go, so it alright. It was intellectually challenging because I had a chance to learn more, but from my own experience not from a class. If there is another student that would want to do an internship in psychology, I would definitely suggest this to them. Like I said before, my goals haven’t changed so I’m just going to keep on learning about this subject.