Hailey Shenk – Psychology Internship

Hi! I’m Hailey Shenk. Throughout this school year, I have been Interning with School Psychologist Angie Gornish who works at the IU13. For my Internship, we visit five K-12 classrooms on Tuesdays and Thursdays.

On a typical day, we visit at least one Emotional Support classroom. There are five classrooms 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 experience in a variety of age groups and problems. Within each room, I perform various activities, including assisting in or running social groups and/or educational groups, observing students and writing a report, and working with students when they have behaviors. Besides classroom activities, I also attend meetings for students, work on Re-Evaluation reports, grading student’s testing, and discuss what would work in creating a successful plan for that student.

Something that I still struggle with is coming out of my shell. A lot of this job is working with others and being open about what you think is right. 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 and overcoming my fear of talking!

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. As of right now, I have applied for a summer position as a Paraeducator through the IU, and plan to work as a substitute para over the 21-22 school year.