Steps to Obtaining an Internship in Psychology
Faculty Contact/Supervisor for Spring 2025 Internships: Dr. Mindy Erchull (merchull@umw.edu)
Faculty Contact/Supervisor for Fall 2025 Internships: Dr. Mindy Erchull (merchull@umw.edu)
STEP 1: Identify the internship you want.
- Visit the Department of Psychological Science website, and review the existing internships which have been pre-approved by the department.
- If you are interested in doing an internship that is not already approved by the department (don’t assume an internship is approved by our department because you learned about it from a UMW source!), you need to contact the current internship coordinator to discuss your proposal. They will help you prepare an internship proposal which you will then present at a department meeting in order to request approval from the department. This process can take over a month, so make sure you plan ahead!
- Interested in doing a summer internship? Check out our Summer Internship Opportunities
- Ensure that you meet the overarching requirements for internships at UMW and in our department.
- You must be currently enrolled as a degree-seeking student at UMW
- You must be a declared psychology major
- You must have earned at least 12 credit hours at UMW
- You must have both an overall GPA and a major GPA of at least 2.0 at the beginning of the semester in which you start the internship (Note: some internships may have a higher GPA requirement).
- You must have at least junior standing (completed 60 credits)
- You must have earned at least 12 credit hours in psychology beyond PSYC 100
- Contact the agency supervisor listed on the internship description to determine if the agency is willing to accept an intern for the semester of interest.
- Note: You will likely have to call rather than email, and you need to be prepared to contact them more than once.
- Also, you may need to go through screening at the internship site. This could include an interview, background check, providing evidence of medical screening, etc.
Things to note:
- You must be free on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 3:30-4:45pm for the on-campus internship supervision course
- Special approval is required if you are seeking approval for an internship for more than 3 credit hours
- Special approval is required if you want to do an internship with an organization you’ve previously volunteered with or worked for. You will need to specify how this internship differs from your prior work.
- No more than 20% of your internship hours can be training hours, pending approval of the training as substantive by your on-campus internship supervisor
- No more than 30% of your duties can be clerical in nature
- The number of hours at your internship site is tied to the number of credits you will receive for the internship (and some sites will not work with interns who are doing internships for less than 3 credits):
- 1 credit = 42 hours
- 2 credits = 84 hours
- 3 credits = 126 hours
- You must complete all hours in order to receive credit for the internship; failure to complete the contracted hours will result in a failing grade for the internship
- You will not receive credit for hours completed before the semester begins and your internship contract has been processed
STEP 2: Complete the internship contract.
- Once you have corresponded with one of our approved internships and they have agreed to your internship proposal, go to the Center for Career and Professional Development Internships Page
- Select the section called “academic credit internships” and then find and select “submit an academic credit internship contract”.
- This will prompt you to sign into Handshake (or create an account if you’ve not already done so).
- *IMPORTANT*: If you haven’t created a Handshake profile, this takes time; please allot yourself time for profile creation
- Once you’re signed into Handshake, go to “career center” on the sidebar menu and then select “experiences”.
- Next, find “submit an experience” and select “academic credit internship”.
- Fill out all the sections of the internship contract including specifying who your site supervisor will be (and their contact information).
- If your internship site doesn’t auto-complete when typing it in, don’t worry, just fill it in yourself; not all our internships are on Handshake’s platform.
- You will list whomever the Psychology Internship Coordinator is for the semester in which you are doing your internship as your faculty sponsor (you can find this information at the top of this page).
- List Dr. Miriam Liss (mliss@umw.edu) as the department chair.
- Then select “submit an experience.”
- If you’re unsure of how you should answer any question, contact the psychology internship supervisor before you complete the contract
- After submission, the form will first be routed to your internship site supervisor to approve. It will then go to the Psych Internship coordinator, and then to the department chair
- Please make sure your site supervisor knows to watch for the email about the digital contract, so they sign it promptly.
- The contract, signed by your site supervisor, is due to the Psychology Internship Coordinator 24 hours prior to end of the add period (5pm on the Thursday of the first week of classes).
STEP 3: Register for your internship (i.e., PSYC 499)
- The registration process for internships occurs outside of Banner.
- Once your contract is submitted and signed by your internship site advisor, the psychology internship coordinator, and the department chair, it will be automatically routed to the registrar’s office. They will then enroll you for your internship and add it to your schedule in Banner.
- It is preferable for this to be done by the end of the previous semester, but contracts may be submitted to the psychology internship coordinator (after your internship site advisor signs it) no later than 5pm the day prior to the last day to add classes.
For more information regarding internships at UMW, contact the Center for Career and Professional Development at 540-654-5646 or ccpd@umw.edu.