8 Things I Learned in Internship
I cannot believe it but my internship is almost over! What an incredible, whirlwind experience. Here is everything I learned through my time here, at The Music Therapy Center of California 🙂
Create a schedule for once you come home from internship
The hours fly by once you come home at 6pm. Sometimes I find myself falling asleep at 2am, or coming home at 6pm, collapsing on the bed and waking up at 2am to do my night routine. If you create a specific schedule for yourself and decide exactly what time you have to be in bed by, you will not have to rely on caffeine so much.
During the 11 hour days, a large sandwich is the best way to pack two meals.
I loved going to my local deli and buying a large panini. One half would be for lunch and the other half would be for dinner. That way, you do not have to worry about preparing two separate meals.
Meal prep, meal prep, meal prep
This is something I already began doing in college, but always cook large portions so you can cook multiple meals in one go. Especially when you come home after a long day in the beginning, cooking might be the last thing you want to do. I also make sure to use glass containers instead of plastic containers for meal storage to minimize microplastics.
Always plan something fun during the weekend
I know it is easy to just want to bed rot during the weekends, but I believe to prevent burn out, planning something fun during the weekends. You have something to look forward to during the weekdays, and having something to do during the weekend also prevents you from procrastinating if you do need to do work during the weekend. If your schedule is empty during the weekends, you may think you have time to do work later…until Sunday night comes along.
Warm up and cool down your voice everyday
During the first month of my internship, my voice hurt so much from being used the most it has ever been on a daily basis. I know the mornings are a huge rush, but put away time to warm up your voice before your first session. At the end of the day on the drive home, I like doing vocal cool downs of descending scalic lip trills, and trying to speak as little as possible.
Write down caregiver/staff names at every site. If appropriate in large group sessions, film a video of each participant and them/you saying their name
There were literally hundreds of names that I had to memorize. My college professor taught me this trick of filming a video with each person saying their name. It was so helpful for me to do it in large group sites because I am honestly so bad at remembering names. Additionally, I also wrote all the participant names in a notes app which I reviewed right before the session.
After learning what to do through observation, the next best thing is to just ‘do’.
With the kiddos, I always felt like I could never let the session flow whenever I jumped in for one intervention or so while my supervisor was watching me. However, once I was alone with my clients, I began learning so much more through just doing.
Get comfortable with the silence or transitions
Of course it is best if we are able to keep the sessions moving especially in group sessions, but do not feel the need to continue to verbally prompt clients, many clients require some processing time and that is okay. I know when starting out I feel this pressure to always fill the empty space with my voice but sometimes it is more effective to have the patience for the clients to process what you said and proceed with the task.
Whether you have completed or not completed your music therapy internship yet, I hope you learned something from my post! I also understand each internship site and population can be very different so take my advice as what you will. Thank you so much to everybody at The Music Therapy Center of California for supporting me during my internship!!!!