Being An Internship Director: Navigating Differences

One of the great things about being an internship supervisor is getting meet many different music therapy interns - getting to know their ways of doing things, figuring out how to teach them things that they need to know, and helping them meet the demands of the professional world through assignments and program expectations. This is also one of the biggest challenges since each person who arrives at my internship is a unique human being who needs different things from me in order to be successful in my program.

Now, before we get too much further into this particular topic, let's establish some things. First of all, I fit into the category of old music therapist now. I have been doing this job as a professional just shy of 30 years. It has been about 14 years since I have been in my last educational experience. I have an advanced degree in my chosen profession, and I have been training interns since the last century (barely, but still, things did start up in the 1900's). All of these things mark me as someone who is old. There you go. I am embracing that fully because there really isn't an alternative.

I have worked with 35 interns over the years, so I have met many different music therapy humans in my program. I have learned to adapt things to meet the needs of these diverse humans, and I try to make sure that they get the concepts that I need to do my job. I admit when I don't know something. I try to find people to connect with students who want things that I cannot provide to them. What I have learned is that I cannot predict how someone will learn - it takes some getting to know them.

I am currently watching the Disney movie, Strange World, and it seems to be a perfect illustration of being an internship director. I think I am Jaeger in this analogy - the person who is so comfortable in the strange world that has to navigate the new concepts brought into your world by people who are strange, but who have a bit of experience with the situation - like Searcher (that's the role of the intern). The experienced explorer (me) has to help the newbie navigate the world, but the newbie also shows things to the explorer that have never been thought of before. There is a journey that happens in the movie and in the internship.

One of the themes of the movie, Strange World, is that there is room for all types of ideas, ways to do things, and people in the worlds that we create. There are times when conflict occurs between the "way I do things" and the way "I want to do things." There are times when conflict occurs - it is inevitable. By the end of the movie, things are working pretty well - no spoilers, I promise. I mean, it is a Disney animated film, so there is a happy ending, - but it takes some time to get there. It also takes some cooperation and negotiation between the old explorer and the son that took a different path into life before things work well.

As an internship director, I find that each journey is different. Each intern brings things to me and my way of doing music therapy that is different from the ones before and after them. I learn, hopefully a bit easier than how Jaeger and Searcher learn in the movie.

Currently, I am navigating a situation that I have never had to go through before. I am not going to give out any information here, but I am not exactly sure what to do because this journey has never happened before. I will do what I need to do, and I do have a plan for this, but it will change things for my future interns. I have to add in some clauses based on this situation. It is not the end of the world, but there needs to be some information shared so this situation will not happen again.

I just remember that this is a journey that is different each time.

Happy Monday.