Having completed Intern Abroad HQ’s remote Covid-19 Psychological Support internship, Dina recounts what her experience involved, how this contributed towards her long term goals of a career in mental health, and what her greatest successes were…
Developing cultural competencies on my remote internship
My Psychology internship experience has been exciting! India is such a multicultural country and while I may have been interning remotely, I was surprised by how many people from different backgrounds and religions I was able to interact with.
My internship placement is based in Mumbai, however the multiculturalism of the other interns I work with would make you believe I was based all over the world. I have worked alongside people from Japan, France, Germany, and the UK.
Through this, I have gained a multicultural perspective on how Covid is being handled globally and how this relates to counselling and organizational psychology, all from the comfort of home. My cultural competence has really improved through my conversations with different people during my internship experience.
Daily tasks as a Covid-19 Psychological Support intern
My day-to-day tasks included interacting with professionals and gaining insight from their experiences and knowledge, collaborating with my supervisor and fellow interns, completing assignments, and observing mental health counselling sessions. I also got to monitor meetings between parents and career counsellors and apply my Hindi language skills during non-English sessions.
I gained an understanding of what organizational psychology entails and how it may be connected to counselling psychology. I also helped my supervisor with additional tasks, such as deciding if certain sessions were understandable enough to share with the other interns and sending weekly reports.
How my remote mental health internship contributes towards my goals
In future, I want to enter the mental health field so participating in a remote internship with a counselling institute has allowed me to experience first-hand how this kind of career would be executed. Becoming a mental health counsellor requires empathy, the ability to listen and patience, all of which I have been able to improve on from my internship experience.
Being able to witness counselling sessions in real time and observe how my supervisors responded and interacted with clients has helped me better understand how to approach similar situations in future. When dealing with group administration difficulties, I looked at how my supervisors acted and the different approaches they would take. Seeing this in person helped me retain and learn relevant skills that I can emulate going forward in my career.
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What I’m proud of from my remote internship experience
My greatest success is finishing the online Psychology internship and knowing that I have done my best in reaching my own expectations. In addition, getting positive feedback from my supervisor has contributed to my feeling of success. The fact that my supervisor told me at the end that I am welcome to attend more sessions and even stay in touch, filled me with a sense of accomplishment and pride. A personal goal of mine was to establish good relationships and work on my interpersonal skills, so seeing this kind of outcome has made me very proud!
My advice for future remote interns…
Whenever I start something new, my expectations of myself are very high. Once I become more familiar with my role and what I need to do, I loosen up. I become more comfortable in expressing myself and become familiar with my own expectations.
If I had to give advice to future remote interns, I would say to not give yourself such a hard time in the beginning. It is ok if you don’t initially match up to your own expectations. You are still learning and with the time and support of others, you will find your balance and a way to do it as the internship progresses.
How can I get started?
Our step-by-step guide on how it works provides you with more information on how to get started. The process is user friendly and there are two options you can take to get the ball rolling.
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If you’re unsure of which internship program is right for you, you can simply check availability to submit an enquiry which will help us to point you in the right direction. If you want to chat over the phone, you can also find our full contact information here.
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If you already have an idea of what you want to do, and when you want to do it, you can submit your application. It doesn’t cost anything and won’t take more than 5 minutes. However, your formal expression of interest provides the foundation for us to help you take the next steps.