Hailey Shenk – Educational Psychology Internship

I am Hailey Shenk and I am interning at the IU13 with School Psychologist, Angie Gornish.  Though we are based in the IU13 building, we spend the majority of our time at different schools in emotional support classrooms. We started working together in September and are set to work together until the end of the first semester. I am at my internship every Tuesday and Thursday.

On a typical day, we visit at least one Emotional Support classroom. There are five classrooms that we visit, including a kindergarten room, an elementary age classroom, a middle-school-age classroom, and two high school classrooms. Because of these different environments, I am gaining plenty of experience in a variety of situations within the internship. Within each room, I perform various activities, including assisting in social groups and/or educational groups, observing students and writing a report, and working with students when they have behaviors.

Somethings that I still struggle with are coming out of my shell. A lot of this job is working with students and staff and giving your ideas on how to improve situations. Even before this opportunity, I have always been shy and struggle with sharing what I believe. However, I have made progress since I started this. I am becoming comfortable enough to work with students one on one. Additionally, throughout my time here I have found more things to enjoy about the career and I definitely look forward to finding a job similar to what I am doing right now.

Prior to my internship, I was unsure exactly what aspect of school psychology I wanted to get into. However, now that I have this, I can see myself doing this as my permanent occupation after college. One thing I would change is the traveling. The majority of the classrooms are about an hour away, which is very far for me. Personally, I would like to work at one school in order to get to know one classroom of students better. Moreover, I prefer a set schedule. For my internship, it is a different plan every day. Nevertheless, every day I participate in my internship I have fun and I look forward to every Tuesday and Thursday.