Break Chronicles - Thinking Deeply About Being an Internship Director

Well, it's official.

I offered yet another applicant a position as intern at my facility and was denied yet again. I am frustrated by this process, by the lack of interns, by the effort that I put in to be rejected again and again. (I also have a headache and travel-related body aches, so keep in mind that my thoughts on this topic are a bit skewed toward the negative, at the moment.) I am to the point where I think it is time to close my internship program rather than go through this time and time again.

Closing my internship is something that I have thought about one other time in my tenure as ID, and that was when I was stuck in a room that was not appropriate at all for music therapy and was in the midst of a depressive period. Once I moved into my big room that I have now, things got better with my emotions and my attitude towards being a mentor again. I was asked to take my internship off of inactive status by the Director of Professional Practices, so I did.

Since that point, I have had about 10 interns come to work with my clients and with me. I had to navigate most of them through constantly changing conditions with the pandemic, and I have noticed that things have significantly changed with the knowledge level, with the clinical experience, and with the ways people think as compared to my pre-COVID and COVID-concurrent interns.

To put it concisely - I am frustrated with being an Internship Director right now.

Two years from today, I fully intend to leave the job that I have been doing for decades. I am eligible for retirement from my school job on June 1, 2026. I will finish up the contract year - June 30, 2026 - and then I fully intend to move into another form of music therapy practice. What that will be, I am not sure at this point, but I have two years to figure it out. I know that at least a month of no work obligations will be in the works on this date in two years, but everything else is up in the air right now.

As I am working towards the end date of my employment, I am considering whether I want to continue to go through the process of accepting applications, taking time to interview applicants, and then offering positions. This process takes time, and I am not entirely sure that I want to keep going through the motions just to have to start all over again when the people I invite do not want to work with my clients in my program. I don't want to wonder if the applicants who have submitted partial applications are ever going to finish their applications. I don't want to have to email applicants to remind them that they have to finish their applications to be considered AND that they are responsible for closing open applications. That is something that they should already know, but they do not. Nothing is more frustrating to me than extending an offer and getting an email that says, "oh, sorry. I have already accepted a position." ARRRRRGGGGGHHHHH!

There are benefits and drawbacks to keeping my internship open and to closing it down now. Most of the benefits are personal, but that's okay. I have mentored 36 interns into the music therapy world, and it is fine to stop where I am. The drawbacks are more centered around potential interns which interests me greatly.

I have so many things to consider and work through. I am frustrated, and I cannot really figure out what to do next. Applicants are not doing what they need to do. I can't figure it all out. Too much to think about while on vacation.