[humanser] Internships?

[Merry Schoch]

Hi Christina,

I wish you the best in finding an internship placement.  My internship experience on the under graduate level was one I'm not too proud to share, but I will.  I had to search for my own internship since I was doing classes on-line and the university was in another city.  The degree was in criminal justice.  The part I am not real proud of is that I applied and interviewed for two; I was able to hide my blindness during the interviews.  I then had to make a choice between the two and I chose the Public Defender's office in my county.  The funny part of the story is that the person who trained me was blind as well; however, he would not admit it and  did dnot use a cane which, shamefully, I did not during that internship, but when I was a few blocks away from the building I pulled that cane out.  

During  my graduate experience there was no way I would or could hide my blindness.    The field placement instructor offered a place she thought was reasonable for me to take my guide dog.  While waiting for the interview I was nervous since I knew I had to overcome the barriers of misconceptions of blindness.  Again, I was wrong.  My future field supervisor came in on a wheelchair.  Yay!  I immediately relaxed thinking she'd get it and she did!  Not only was she a person with a disability she also worked with a person who was blind while in college.  Lucky me!

It sounds to me like you are doing all the correct things to get this internship.  My advice would be hold your head up with confidence in your skills.  I wish I would have done that with my undergrad internship.

Please let us know how it goes for you!


With warm welcome to this list!Merry C. Schoch LCSW
Merry C. Schoch LCSW


-----Original Message-----
From: humanser [mailto:humanser-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of Christina Moore via humanser
Sent: Saturday, September 05, 2015 8:17 AM
To: Human Services Division Mailing List
Cc: Christina Moore
Subject: [humanser] Internships?

Hi Everyone,

I hope you are all doing well on this lovely Saturday morning. :) I am unsure if I introduced myself here so here goes before I get into the main topic of this post.
My name is Christina and I am a senior at a small christian liberal arts college in NY. I am majoring in Psychology with a track in pre-therapy, I have a minor in communications completed and am looking to add a minor in Data Science so long as the courses I have taken that would fulfill that requirement would be able to even though they were for my major/general credit. Some of you may have met me at NFB during the Human Services devision meeting (which was quite a wonderful experience).

Now, to the main topic of this post:
Since I am a senior, part of my graduation requirements are to do an internship either during the semester or during a summer for credit. I am wondering if anyone here could share there experiences with me about how they found internships, contacted the organizations, responses to having a visual disability and any other information you may find useful/are willing to share would be great.
I am looking into an opportunity currently that would be in a girl’s home so if anyone has experience with that sort of environment that would be great. The staff at the organization have received my application (allowing me to submit it electronically instead of the standard snail mail), letters from my references, interviewed me (a short interview asking me why I am interested in the position Etc.) and I am planning to schedule for the more comprehensive interview next week. If I make it past the comprehensive interview, I will then visit their location and see what the home is like, interact with residents and staff and a final decision will be made after a couple of days.
I am sorry for the length of this post but I wanted to give as much explanation as possible so that all of you could better understand my question.
Thanks for reading and responding.
Christina
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