While every aspect of higher education has been impacted and required creativity and flexibility due to COVID-19, the ability to provide internships in the face of organizational modifications was especially difficult. Listservs throughout the early parts of the pandemic were full of postings about whether and how to keep internships going1, and the disruption to internships is ongoing for many students, even as other parts of the curriculum have found their ‘new normal.’ What follows are suggestions for maintaining undergraduate internships2 in the Psychology curriculum3.
Path of Least Resistance
Of course, perhaps the easiest possibility of internships at this time is if agencies have remote learning opportunities. While this is certainly a possibility, these types of opportunities tend to be less common in Psychology than in other academic majors. If there are agencies that hosted interns at the beginning of the pandemic that successfully offered meaningful learning to student interns when learning went remote, reach out to them now to see if they would be willing and able to offer a full semester’s worth of learning using a remote format. Another possibility is to consider reaching out to consistent partner agencies and offering to help them construct a meaningful remote learning opportunity until internships resume in person.
Middle Ground
If your institution has decided that classes will take place face to face, this is the best likelihood that your students may be able to complete an internship in the community. If students are responsible for securing their placements, remind them that because many organizations are still in the process of navigating the varied changes that the pandemic brings, both patience and persistence are required in equal measure to successfully secure an internship placement. If an organization is amenable to in-person internships, it is also important to proactively address the potential need to transition to remote learning based on local, statewide, or even school-specific mandates. This makes any future transition to remote work less stressful for the student, the faculty member, and the internship organization.
Last Ditch Efforts
There may be cases where external internships in any capacity will simply not be available. In this case, a modified course can be considered to address some of the learning objectives that an internship might offer. The least intensive course to develop would be to compile a list of (free) online certifications that students could complete. Continuing education offerings from human services, psychology, and social work organizations, as well as training from various governmental agencies (e.g., SAMHSA, State Health and Human Service divisions, child abuse, and mandated reporter training), can provide students with important learning opportunities. Many of these learning opportunities also result in certificates at completion, which can be an important resume builder for students. Combining this training with a literature review or reflection-based work on a selected training allows students to gain both breadth and depth of knowledge.
A more ambitious plan would be to move beyond simple training and provide students with an opportunity to more actively apply their knowledge similar to what they would do on internship. Even if classes are completely remote for any given institution, you could work with a partner community agency(ies) to describe the type of work that they do. This can be accomplished in a pre-recorded Zoom session or a live session at the beginning of the semester. From there, students can be given case material for the type of work that the agency does, and then students would be responsible for researching and then presenting the relevant knowledge and practices necessary to deal with the source material. Course outcomes can be tied to the National Association of Colleges and Employers’ (NACE) Career Readiness competenciesopens in new window so that students can use the competencies as alternate resume builders to what the internship would have provided.
Internships are powerful learning opportunities but may not be viewed as a central component of undergraduate Psychology curriculums. Particularly when standard teaching/learning practices are disrupted, such as with the pandemic, internships may take a back seat to more pressing curricular concerns. Because of the unique opportunities that internships provide, however, attempts should be made to keep internships in the curriculum.
About the author
Carla G. Strassle is a professor of psychology and the director of Experiential Learning, Internships, and Practica in the School of Behavioral Sciences and Education at York College of Pennsylvania. With experiential learning oversight for Criminal Justice, Human Services, Psychology, Recreation and Leadership, and Sociology majors, she works closely with faculty members from various disciplines and community agencies on internship, practicum, and directed field experiences. COVID-19 provided an excellent opportunity to ‘practice what she preaches’ to her faculty. She is a clinical psychologist by training and teaches the Cooperative Internship course for Psychology majors. She has the best job in the department because she gets to see Psychology majors make their first steps into the professional world through their internship experiences. Her non-internship teaching and research focuses on critical thinking and stigma reduction.
