Can you get an internship position as an undergrad?

[MissPenguin]

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Hi there,
May I please ask can you get an internship position as an undergraduate? If yes, where can I get it? Thank you.

 

[erg923]

If by "internship" you mean some kind of formal clinical experience with psych populations..the answer is yes. However, you will not be qualified to do much more than very basic things at this point. You wont be doing in therapy, testing, or diagnosis. Maybe some education groups though. Common clinical experiences during the undegrad years include working as a psychiatric tech (kinda like a nurses aid) in psych hopsital or psychiatric unit of a med hospital, working in a crisis/battrered women/or homless shelter, volunteering at crisis and suicide hotlines, etc. Certain research volunteer experiences may also get you exposure to psychiatric disorders, depnding on the nature of thr research and your role of course. I did some very basic testing (giving the STAI, NEO-PI, trail making, tower of hanoi) as an undergrad with normal subjects...

 

[buzzworm]

Yes. A lot of universities have summer psychology internships where you can get a lot of hands-on experience testing participants, coding data, doing data analysis, etc. Try googling "psychology" and "summer internship" or going to the career center at your school. I did this for two summers in a row during college and didn't get any experience with psych patients, but did get in a lot of really good non-clinical research experience.

A lot of psych hospitals also offer volunteer opportunities for undergrads. The specifics of that sort of job can vary a lot, but try finding a volunteer coordinator at your local psych hospital or university.

 

[lookitssara]

If you're interested in children or adolescents, I know people who got internships working at residential treatment centers as "counselors" (more like camp counselors) as well as with those retreat type camps for adolescents with behavioral problems.