Opportunities for Psychology Majors
(1) Internship in Applied Psychology: Integrating both cognitive and experiential learning, the Psychology Department offers its senior psychology majors the opportunity to work as interns in varied settings. Student interns are offered a wide selection of placements from which to choose, including working with autistic children, assisting probation officers, working with guidance counselors, learning about advertising or human resources, working in psychiatric facilities, etc. Each student spends at least ten hours per week on-site under qualified supervision enabling her or him to use the skills and knowledge acquired as students of psychology.
(2) Internship in Teaching Psychology: This practicum experience, open to advanced psychology majors, allows the student to explore the profession of teaching psychology. Under the direct supervision of the professional staff of the Department, students are introduced to the issues of curriculum development, methods of classroom instruction, selection and use of media resources, test construction, and strategies for the academic and practical motivation of students. Interns have the opportunity to observe participating faculty engaged in the profession of teaching, to share in some of the instructional activities, and to meet with other interns in a seminar format to process the learning experiences.
(3) Supervised Research: This course is the mechanism through which many of the professors in the department engage students in their research programs for course credit during the academic year. Students work in the laboratory of a faculty member, learning hands-on what psychological research entails, and are expected to do substantial reading and critiques of peer-reviewed journal articles, to analyze data collected during the semester with the guidance of the professor.
(4) Independent Research: This course entails the design and implementation of an independent research project, and is taken by a subset of psychology majors, usually during senior year. It is also the mechanism through which psychology majors in the university honors program complete their senior theses. Independent research students, under the guidance of the faculty advisor, develop their projects, with the outcome measure being an empirical paper in APA format with novel data collected during the project.
Internship sites (a sampling):
- YWCA (domestic violence unit)
- Superior Court (adult probation, family court, juvenile center)
- Legal Services of Connecticut
- Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (children's unit)
- Family and Children's Agency, Norwalk
- New England Center for Children
- Giant Steps
- National Center for Post‐Traumatic Stress Disorder
- Fairfield Preparatory School (counseling)
- The United Way (organizational)
