Internships are a large time commitment. In addition to the hours spent at the internship site, students must spend time preparing for the internship, commuting, completing paperwork, reflecting, and processing the events as part of their education and professional growth. Setting clear goals and planning your time will ensure that you are able to manage this additional workload.

Scheduling

One of the worst things you can do at an internship is to be erratic in your attendance or to change schedules frequently since doing so can disrupt the lives of clients, the duties of the person supervising you, and the function of an agency. The primary editor of this book has found that scheduling difficulties is the single most frequently reported problem that agencies have with interns, so it is to be avoided.

It is important to figure out a schedule that works for you and for the site. To that end, you should work with the site’s supervisor or director to arrange the hours that are best for all parties. Some sites will be very accommodating with your scheduling needs. Others may have more rigorous requirements. In all situations, it is important to remember that the agency is being generous enough to give you supervised clinical duties. Sometimes they depend on you being there to help address client needs. So, remember to be open and honest with the person doing the scheduling in order to avoid conflicts. If a schedule conflict does occur, be sure to talk to the supervisor in advance about what is best for the agency and yourself.

Keeping track of hours might present similar issues. On one hand, you are not an employee and can “leave” any time you want. On the other hand, the class and the agency require accountability, especially if there is an hours-worked requirement. Some sites will give you a copy of the schedule but leave it to you to track the hours needed for the internship. Others might require signing in and out.

The Importance of Managing Your Time

Planning and managing your time will help you get the most out of your fieldwork experience. There are various types of planners and trackers—paper, electronic, and even phone apps. It is important to find one that works for you, but that also works for the agency.

The most important feature of a planner is that you use it

If you forget to record appointments and other information, the planner is irrelevant. Likewise, if you record the information and then don’t look at it, the planner is useless. It may take some experimenting to see what fits best for you, but since the benefits of weekly schedules are clear, experimentation is worth the effort.

What to put in your planner

Over the years, our students have identified several helpful actions to help them stay on track:

• Plan your day before you start it and spend time each day planning, reviewing upcoming commitments and due dates, etc.
• Write a set of goals for yourself each day and have a clear idea of what you want to accomplish during the next week.
• Put classes and fieldwork schedules in your weekly calendar. Add your work schedule, too, if needed.
• Make a list of things to do for each day.
• If you have a job, make a clear schedule of activities you have to do on work days.
• Have a list of priorities such as deadlines, tests, and quizzes.
• Pay attention to your fieldwork learning outcomes and make sure to schedule adequate time to accomplish these. Keep track of your progress throughout the term.
• Plan ahead because things could come up.
• Save extra time for bigger projects.
• Plan to show up early.

As you are working on creating a plan and a schedule, remember that even people who stay focused on what is important get sidetracked and add too many activities to their days. It can be helpful to review what you want to get done and what your roles and responsibilities are. Consider whether your list is reasonable given the amount of time you have in your day. Is there something you can leave out if you need to reserve some time for a higher priority (such as maintaining your sanity)? Many agree with David Allen’s quote, “You can do anything, but you can’t do everything.” (For more information on productivity expert David Allen, visit his website Getting Things Done).

Setting Goals

What do you want to achieve during your internship? Your answer will help you focus your time in those directions. Often, your learning objectives are either vague or general and hard to measure. Setting goals can help you operationalize your learning to help you stay on track and be able to show your growth. By operationalize, we mean you should, for instance, be able to describe what your goals are so that others can help you identify opportunities or assignments that will help you reach them. This type of planning and prioritizing allows you to play an active role in your education. It also helps others know what to do to help make the internship a good experience for you.

A helpful strategy for creating goals is to use the acronym SMART (adapted from Doran, 1981). SMART goals are specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-based (or trackable). The more specific your goal, the easier it will be to know when you have achieved it. In figure 2.3, we take a learning objective often assigned to human services students in their first term of internship and turn it into a SMART goal.

Let’s say your goal is to help with referrals. You could make it a SMART goal by phrasing it this way: “My goal is to manage the referral desk (specific) for five hours (measurable) one day a week (achievable) in order to become familiar with local resources (relevant) for ten weeks (time-based).” This also makes the goal measurable and time-based, since you will know at the end of the term whether this was achieved. Whether your goal is achievable depends on different factors. The longer you stay at an agency, the more independence you will probably receive because your supervisor and coworkers have had a chance to see your work. You may have to create goals that build upon each other throughout the time you are there. “Relevant” has to do with what your personal goals are for your internship. If knowing about resources in the community is something you seek, then staffing the referral desk is relevant to you. If you are more interested in learning about how to work with clients within the agency itself, then this goal may not be relevant enough for you.

Learning Agreements and Contracts

Your college, the placement site, or both may have certain legal obligations or routine requirements that must be met. One of them, for example, may be the need for a formal legal agreement between your educational institution and the placement site. Another one could be a written plan that includes such details as who you will be working with, what duties you will be performing while at the site, and the educational objectives you, the site, and your instructor feel are important for you to master.

One of the most empowering ways to achieve your goals is to draw up an internship or learning agreement. A learning agreement is often developed in written form so that the college, agency, supervisor, and student are all quite literally on the same page about expected duties, requirements, and objectives. Another benefit of a written agreement is that it allows you to track progress and provides you guidance if the agency points you in directions you did not intend or agree to go in. In other words, these agreements are best handled in writing so that they can be used as a guide to help create a good internship plan and to maintain focus throughout the internship experience. In this sense, the learning agreement is like a contract that you may refer to throughout the process.

Here’s some information that a learning agreement could include:

• Your expected duties
• Your work hours
• Your supervisor

When creating your learning agreement, be sure to use the SMART goal strategy discussed earlier in this chapter. This contract may also spell out limitations to your activities and who will be providing liability insurance for you while you are on site. If these matters are not spelled out, you should talk to both your supervisor and your instructor about them.

Clear contracts provide the foundations for a rewarding internship experience. Consequently, your goals will also be reviewed by supervisors and agencies who will have some sound ideas and suggestions regarding your expectations and limitations. Sometimes they even see more potential in you than you might be aware of yourself. This situation can create an opportunity for you to grow beyond your expectations.

Accordingly, sometimes it is best to modify an agreement. In that case, changes should be approved by you, your supervisor, and your instructor. Occasionally, a college or site will not use a contract but have only a verbal agreement with an intern. Although this situation isn’t the best, you can at least document what you agree to do and not do and then discuss that with your instructor.

Although rare, sometimes an internship does not work out well for a variety of reasons. For example, there may be a sudden change in supervisors or insurmountable interpersonal conflicts. Though no one wants to see an internship go in this direction, alternatives, and sometimes even a new site, can be found without penalizing the student. Your instructor may also find helpful ways of dealing with this situation if you bring it up to them.

Setting Goals and Managing Time Licenses and Attributions

“Scheduling” is adapted from “Chapter 3: Getting Started at the Site” “Succeeding at Your Internship: A Handbook Written for and with Students” by Christopher J. Mruk, and John C. Moor, Bowling Green State University Libraries. This work is licensed under CC BY NC SA 4.0. Edited for consistency, style, and format with additions of inclusive images by the authors.

“The Importance of Managing Your Time” by Brenda Marks EdD is licensed under CC BY 4.0. Lightly edited for applicability.

“Setting Goals” is adapted from “Chapter 4: Using Supervision Effectively” in “Succeeding at Your Internship: A Handbook Written for and with Students” by Christopher J. Mruk, and John C. Moor, Bowling Green State University Libraries. This work is licensed under CC BY NC SA 4.0. Edited for consistency, style, and format with additions of inclusive images by the authors.