I am working in an office shared with my supervisor at Columbia Psychiatry in Washington Heights, NYC on the 2nd floor with the division of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry. I get to sit at a desk with two computers (two screens are so convenient and cool)!
As the web content intern, it is my responsibility to collect information for the new department website. So far, I have collected resources for mental health disorders affecting young people. While learning about these disorders, it is fascinating to be able to apply my new knowledge to the real world by attending weekly “Grand Rounds” and “T32 Seminars” in which professionals from outside of Columbia come to present their research and findings. Even though I don’t necessarily understand all of the details of the research just yet (one of the seminars was called “Neural Mechanisms Implicated in Compromised Systems of Social Processing”) it is still interesting and exciting to learn about what is up and coming in the field. I also take pictures and write descriptions about each seminar for the department newsletter. I just wrote a blog post for June about summer activities for children that encourage strong mental health. It’s really cool to see my writing published on Columbia’s website. As a college student at the crossroads of childhood and adulthood, I love writing for the department of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry because I can understand the perceptions of both parents and children towards mental health disorders, so I try to cater my resources to parents in a way that will be most effective for a child. Right now, I am working on a fact sheet about eating disorders that will be on the new website when it launches. Eating disorders have affected some of my friends, so I have a personal vested interest in making sure this fact sheet is correct, informative and helpful.
I found my internship by accident. In high school, I loved volunteering at nursing homes and psychology so I decided to combine both interests by reaching out to Dr. D.P Devanand of the Geriatric Psychiatry department at Columbia just to see if I could come in and volunteer. The summer before my senior year of high school, I went to his office a few days per week and volunteered with his research coordinators, helping them to organize papers and pills and sometimes I was even able to sit in on patient consultations as they were conducting a study on the relationship between geriatric depression and cognitive impairments such as Alzheimer’s and dementia. I absolutely loved my experience there. After that, I remained on Columbia’s mailing list and one day in March, I received an e-mail asking for a web content intern. It seemed the perfect opportunity for me because it involved both writing and psychology–two of my favorite things. I hate when people say this, but it really is about who you know. When I applied to internships online (and I applied to many), it felt like I was sending my application into an abyss where I would never hear from that company or organization again–not even a rejection letter. I would highly advise other young people on the internship hunt to keep in touch with past employers because you never know what opportunities may arise through that.
Everyone in this department is super nice. My supervisor introduced me to everyone and I thought I would be treated like “just a kid.” However, people, even including super famous psychologists, say hello to me and remember my name. I’m the youngest person here by a solid ten years, but a graphic design intern is starting next week who is also my age. Despite the age gap between me and others in the division, I find it pretty easy to communicate.
This summer, I plan to learn a lot about website development programs and coding. I also plan on attending many more information seminars, allowing me to learn a lot more about new research. I will definitely take my new knowledge to Tulane when I return to my studies. It might be really helpful in getting to know my professors because I’m sure they keep up with a lot of the new findings in the field as well. I look forward to getting to know other people in the department and my supervisor. They all are so smart and have so much to teach.
