Intern: Fernanda Nunez

Major: Psychology, BA

Semester of Internship: Spring 2019

Internship Site: Arizonans For Children

Give an overview of your site and what you did while interning there.

Arizonans For Children is a nonprofit organization that provides quality supervised visitations to foster children and families who are going through custody cases, giving the opportunity to children and parents to interact in a safe and conflict free environment. As an intern at Arizonans For Children I observed and assed family interactions and provided detailed reports of each visits to Family Court Judges.  I also helped clean up, organize the center and greet visitors.

 Why did you choose this site for your internship?  Discuss how the site fits in with your career and/or academic goals. 

I choose this internship because when I meet the supervisor in the career and internship fair, she spoke with so much passion and I was very intrigued in the organization purpose. I also at the time was thinking of becoming a social worker, and I wanted to get some insight on what some social workers did. Although I discovered that social work was not for me, I did gain better writing skills that I will need for my master’s degree.

What did you like most about working at your site? What activities/responsibilities did you enjoy and learn the most from?

The thing I liked the most was watching family rebuild their relationship. There was a couple of families that I was able to witness them grow closer to each other and regain the trust that was lost, and it was very nice seeing that. From doing supervised visitation I gained the most confidences in my own authority. When I first started doing visitations, I was often scared to remind parents of rules that they had to follow, but I was able to learn how to confront parents in a nicely manner as I continued my internship.

What skills/knowledge did you gain at your internship that you will carry with you in your career path?

Some skills and knowledge that I have learned from my internship is that social work is not for me. I also learned how to manage my time more effectively and in a more organized manner that I will carry not only to my career path but my personal life. As well as time management skills I gained better writing skills, becoming more detailed and precise on writing assignments and reports.

Discuss your career goals and what your next steps are after you complete your Psychology degree.

My career goal is to become a clinical child psychologist, and my next steps after completing my psychology degree is get my master’s in clinical psychology and then get my doctoral degree in clinical child psychology from the University of New Mexico.

What advice can you give to other students interested in pursuing an internship?

Just do it! Don’t be discouraged from others and discover for your own self if that internship is the right one for you. Not all internships are going to be positive experiences, but you will learn so much from it both personally and professionally!