Psychology Internships

Internships through the Psychology department are intended to help Boise State University students to achieve valuable training and work experiences, as well as to provide needed assistance to social service organizations and other agencies to help them achieve their goals.

The internship opportunities available to psychology students are vast, and continue to expand. Because psychology is described as the “scientific study of thought, feeling, and behavior” and psychology students are typically well trained in this area of study, interns from the psychology department can successfully fill many roles and make great contributions to many agencies and to the people these agencies serve. Past psychology students have worked closely with agencies treating people experiencing various types of psychological difficulties, developmental disabilities, and life trauma. Others have worked with children from families in poverty, the homeless, and university students. Newer opportunities exist to help place interns with organizations that serve seniors, refugees, and prisoners and parolees, among others. In short, there are a number of standing partnerships in place that offer internship opportunities for psychology students (see the attached list of agencies). Students interested in internships with other agencies (i.e., those without a standing partnership with the Psychology department or BSU) can often pursue these opportunities after discussing them with the internship coordinator.

Students may complete internships for lower- and upper-division credit; lower-division students enroll for PSYC 293 credit and upper-division students enroll for PSYC 493 credit. In accordance with university guidelines, students must have a 3.00 G.P.A. or higher to enroll for an internship, and may complete a total of 12 internship credits.

The procedure for beginning an internship is rather simple. First, an interested student should go online and fill out the internship form. Go to: and click on Internship Application for Academic Credit. Next, contact the Internship Coordinator in the psychology department. The Coordinator and the student can discuss the student’s interests, and he will provide some possible contacts for internships at agencies and organizations consistent with the student’s interests. Next, the student should contact the relevant person at the agency or agencies that the student is interested in working with. Typically, the contact person at the agency will meet with the student to discuss internship possibilities. If the student and the contact person at the agency agree to an internship for the student, the student will obtain signatures on the relevant paperwork and then take the paperwork to the registrar’s office to be registered for the internship.

The paperwork required to begin an internship consists of a standard university form to be completed by the student and the internship coordinator, and must be signed by the cooperating agency supervisor (the person who will be supervising the intern at the relevant agency). This form establishes where the student will be completing the internship, the number of credit hours requested, and whether the student wishes to receive a letter grade for his or her internship (the other option is to complete the internship for pass/fail). While the grading scheme selection is determined by the student who enrolls in 3 or less internship credit hours, the internship coordinator automatically assigns a grade of pass/fail to students who enroll in 4 or more internship credit hours during a given semester. Additionally, all students must sign a non-disclosure statement.

The hours requirements for internships are as follows: a student must complete 45 hours of work at an internship site for a one-credit internship, 90 hours for a two-credit internship, and 135 hours for a three-credit internship (in some cases, students can earn more than three internship credits in a semester as well). The student and the cooperating agency supervisor are responsible for developing a schedule that will help the student meet the hour requirement for the number of credits requested.

Internship grades are determined by several factors. First, near the end of the semester, the cooperating agency supervisor will be asked to recommend a grade for the student who completed the internship, based on his or her observations of the student’s performance. Second, if completing an off-campus internship (i.e., not serving as a teaching assistant, working in the campus counseling center, or working in the psychology department student support program), the student will turn in a journal documenting their experiences during the internship, and the material provided in the journal will also affect the grade that is ultimately assigned by the internship coordinator. Journals of extraordinary quality may allow for final grades higher than those recommended by the cooperating agency supervisor, and mediocre or low quality journals may result in poorer grades than those suggested by the cooperating agency supervisor.

The internship journal may be hand-written (neatly and legibly) in a notebook or loose-leaf binder, or may be typed. It should document, week-by-week, the student’s experiences at his or her internship site, and should also reflect on how these experiences relate to the field of psychology. Weekly entries do not have to be tremendously long, but they should be sufficiently lengthy to communicate the duties performed by the student, and to comment on how these experiences have affected the student’s understanding of human thought, feeling, and behavior. Completed journals and evaluation forms must be submitted no later than the last day of classes each semester to receive credit. Otherwise a grade of F will be issued for the student.

We are glad that you are considering an internship through the psychology department. Interns routinely help important agencies complete their work in a timely, responsible fashion, and also provide valuable assistance to the clients of these agencies. Furthermore, students who complete internships gain quality work experiences and build their resumes and vitae, both of which are invaluable in helping psychology graduates attain career opportunities and graduate school admissions.

Please feel free to contact me to learn about specific internship possibilities or to discuss questions or concerns about internships.

A pdf listing of internship agencies