Internship Madness

         Many of you have heard tell of Gus and I lamenting the crazy but inevitable process that is the next step in the academic chapter of Herman's life. To summarize Gus has prospected his dissertation (meaning his committee accepted and approved of the study, method and research he is using to write his dissertation), he has gotten his master's and the next step is to finish writing and then defend the "Big D", and merrily go on a year of internship study.  Once that year is done and his dissertation is defended he will officially have his Ph. D. as a clinical psychologist. Sounds simple in theory. 


The problem is that academia never makes anything simple for these poor kids. The process of applying for internship is grueling, expensive, and holds no guarantees of getting the internship you would like, or any internship at all. Weeks before our wedding Gus finished and mailed all 17 of his internship applications, he applied to big schools like Harvard, Yale, and Brown less glamorous but more challenging positions like the Southern Veterans Administration hospitals in Jackson Mississippi and even prisons in Petersburg and Butner, N.C where Bernie Madoff currently resides. Each application requires hours of writing, filling out applications and cover letters and of course a thirty dollar application fee. He spent weeks fine tuning, second guessing and agonizing over these applications. He thought maybe he should send more to better his chances of getting more interviews, or apply to less competitive programs that he felt confident he could get into. Back and forth and round and round he went. 


This was all maddening because I had gone through it all last year with a brilliant girlfriend who second guessed everything about her application process and then wound up landing her first choice program. I had hoped (in vain) that Gus would not suffer the same anxiety, self deprecation and self doubt that she had gone through. After all he is Herman Freaking Augustus, the wonder boy the one who everyone loves who gets all the scholarships, fellowships, and awards. He is brilliant, and unlike most graduate students he works hard to not let school dominate his entire existence. I would think he would be the perfect candidate for any of these internship programs. Yet and still my fears came true and he has gone through the same black tunnel of self doubt and worry that I think must afflict all the graduate students who are forced to go through this seemingly arbitrary process. 


Never did I ever think I would have to yell at my husband to "get off that damn message board", a popular forum where snarky, anxious applicants in similar positions go to vent, instill dread, brag, or just generally cause mass chaos. The day after our wedding Gus got his first internship invitation from the Pittsburgh VA and he took it as a good sign, however the next week was spent periodically refreshing the email button on his phone and wondering why he had not heard anything from anyone else. Then the rejections came seemingly in droves and he was despondent. The fear is that if you don't "match" at any internship sites you are forced to stay where you are another year and then re-apply to all the sites again. He wants to move on and the thought of stagnating out here is a gigantic motivational factor. Over the next few weeks the rest of the sites came through and he had interviews in Pittsburgh, Charleston, Yale, Baltimore, Butner, St. Louis and was essentially wait listed in Cleveland. 


Six interviews is nothing to sneeze at, he was dissapointed but I was super proud of him. All the boards told him he should have gotten at least ten but quality not quantity right? Also, to the untrained eye this process seems completely arbitrary he did not get an interview in Jackson, Mississippi which is not as competitive as Yale. It all just seems like people in a room throw all the applications in the air and the ones they pick up are the ones they interview which is kind of depressing.  Also, lest anyone think he did not try he applied to both the Richmond VA and the Petersburg prison and did not get an interview at either. He is convinced Richmond hates him after he applied to graduate school at VCU and never even got so much as a rejection letter back. We tried to come back home but home apparently did not want Herms. 


Hurray you say Herman has six interesting interviews, now what? Well next is the fun part and by fun I mean unrealistic and almost downright cruel. The way the interviews work is they are set up normally over the course of two weeks. Each site gives you a list of say three dates you can interview on. So each site gives you only three chances to come meet with them. If you have six sites and the interviews are all withing the same two week period you have to figure out how to schedule, and then get to all the interviews. Luckily Pittsburgh was early we went there before Christmas, and St. Louis was late he did that interview last Friday, the rest however all fell withing the same week and they were all on the East Coast. 


Okay so here we go as an applicant it is your job to get to the interview, look super professional and spend the day (the interviews last from 8-4) meeting with interns, learning about the program and touring the facilities. Sweet so it's a job interview and they are going to put you up in a hotel and feed you and make it a great experience right. BAHAHAHAHA. Naw man not one bit. It is the applicants job to pay to get to the interview (most fly), pay for their hotel (the closer to the site the better because it involves less travel and hopefully no parking and we all know metropolitan hotels are super affordable) and of course food, car rentals or cabs, and hopefully at least a glass of wine somewhere. 


Since ostensibly all the applicants are graduate students living on meager stipends and getting by on student loans this "internship application" requirement is actually a requirement to take on loads more debt in an attempt to secure a position (that is not guaranteed) so that eventually you can get your Ph. D. and then get a real job. I guess the kicker/heartbreaker of all of this is that the average salary for an intern at any of these sites is $24,000. Which in Boston or New Haven does not get you very far at all. So you are paying loads of money to get an internship that is not a given so you can make nothing but hopefully down the road have a real career. Now I have never made much money, or really had a big kid job to be honest but this whole system seems crazy flawed to me. These graduate students are paying to work. I think that used to be called indentured servitude and is you know illegal. So there is my rant about that whole thing, and regardless of how wrong I thought it was the crazy train was going to leave the station whether I was on board or not. 


We planned, budgeted and embarked on our epic quest. Now I am sure most of you know that I am currently not working, not for lack of trying but there it is so I was able to help Gus on this trip, most of the applicants go it alone so I though Herms might have had a little bit of an advantage in a support system/cheerleader along for the ride with him. 


We started with the 12 hour drive to Charleston, SC which was beautiful. We listen to non-fiction books on cd and chat and drink too much diet soda. I actually really love road trips with Gus so it was fun, and we got to drive by Dollywood which was glorious. Charleston was gorgeous, sunny and warm (we had come from snow), there were palm trees everywhere and you could smell the sea! Loved it. I am biased I think because Charleston is my first choice. Love it there, only six hours from home and I think my friends and family might actually come to visit us there because it is fun.  His interview went well but he left with a strange impression that lingered over the rest of his time there. It was his first interview of the four and kind of the warm up to the week. Afterwards he emailed people he met with and got a better feeling for the program and seemed more excited about the possibilities. Charleston was a consortium site which means it is a VA site that works with the Medical University of South Carolina. After his interview we explored Charleston, had some mint juleps walked to the water and tried amazing duck sandwiches at a place called the Tattooed Moose which was a Diners, Dives and Drive-In's recommendation. I was smitten. I only had a moment to savor the fun though because at 6 the next morning we were on to the next site. 

Love, love, love Charleston!

Now this was the worst day of driving we did we went from Charleston to New Haven in a day. Lots of 95 North and even more tolls. It cost us 42 dollars in tolls for four states which was insane, the worst of course being the Jersey Turnpike. Yeesh, Bruce should get on doing something about that. The baby Saturn hated the roads, Gus hated the traffic and congestion and we were just really grateful to have arrived in one piece. The downside of New Haven is we could not afford to stay close to the site so we stayed about 15 minutes away in Wallingford, Connecticut. Thank goodness for Marriott rewards points or our trip would have been way more expensive. The downside of that being that Gus had to take the car and I did not really get to explore the area. Plus it was absolutely freezing. The coldest and greyest of all the sites we visited for sure, yuck. However, he loved the program. He really loved the people and the site. The next day on our way to Baltimore we drove around New Haven so I got to see a little bit of the area. Beautiful architecture, totally freezing. 

Driving through New Haven.

The drive to Baltimore was zany as we told our GPS "no tolls" which means we got to see lots of the less glamorous parts of New Jersey, for all its claims to being a "garden state" I did not see a single plant on that trip. We made it to Baltimore and I loved driving through "Greektown" and "Little Italy" to get there. This part of the trip was a little more relaxed as he did not have an interview the very next day so we got to relax a little. We tried lots of little pubs, and had great bison burgers on the water. We got to explore Little Italy and Gus got to drink pints of his new favorite micro brewery the "Heavy Seas", which heavily emphasizes pirates. I liked Baltimore, having not been to the Inner Harbor since I was younger it was great going back as a grownup. 

Baltimore's Little Italy

There are lots of activities and while yes there seemed to be more homeless than any of the places we had visited I never felt unsafe or scared. The next day Gus had his interview at the Baltimore VA which went really well and I think he was surprised at how much he liked that program. There was little time to dawdle though I picked Gus up and we drove straight to Butner, NC. 

Playing by the Baltimore harbor.

Butner is a prison hospital, the largest in the country where they send sick inmates from all over America. It is also a white collar prison that houses people who are indited on things like tax fraud and embezzlement. It is kind of a melting pot of crazy criminals. It's about 15 minutes outside of Durham which is a really interesting area and is the site that is closest to home which I loved. However again we did not stay in Durham but rather a small hotel out by the prison which was, interesting. Gus set off for his interview and returned in a frenzy having seen things most of us will never have to. He visited parts of the prison population he would be working with and had people try to pee on him, proposition him, and threaten to do things to his suit that are untypable. 


Needless to say he returned a little shaken. I think as much as he likes to think he wants to work with the super mental ill at the end of the day he realizes that it would just be too much.  In the prison system not a lot of care is given towards inmates mental health which was hard for him to come to terms with and he would be required to in addition to being a psychologist to also be a correctional officer. Butner was kind of a long shot and while I think he is glad he went it is very low on his list. We did like going out in the town though and it was a nice way to cap off the trip. 

Adventures in Durham

While obviously it was disappointing that we did not get to visit with anyone I think you can understand why, there was not much down time during any of this trip. Most days we were asleep by 8 and up at 4:30 or 5 to spend the day either driving or in Herms case interviewing which really wears you out. We drove back home having pulled off a massive victory, we did it!  As I had mentioned earlier most people who Gus interviewed with he saw at several sites and they had all flown, so if you think a flight is on average $300 dollars and you have to take six or seven of them to get to your interviews and then get home, plus food, hotels and cabs, that adds up very quickly. We were able to do this on a shoe string budget thanks to a Marriotts rewards card, and a four door sedan with good gas mileage but I cannot imagine how the other applicants pull it off. Gus figures they must just take out a credit card especially for internship applications and go to town. 

Durham adventures

While it sucks obviously that I'm not working it felt really good being able to be with Gus and help him through the process. There were the days when the self doubt stuck, or his suit is wrinkly, or we were hungry, or cranky and tired and it was nice to have each other to help get through it. I am also grateful that I was able to see all the towns that I will potentially be living in next year. Gus has to submit his ranked lists of sites by Feb 1st. and we will find out where he matches on Feb 22nd.  I can't tell you his exact list because it's against the "rules" of this crazy system, but I enjoyed Charleston and Gus will probably be changing his rankings until the last second. 

The matching system is similar to that of rushing in the Greek system, or medical schools. You rank your favorites, the sites rank theirs and then you 'match'. Again, you might not even get your first choice but after this process you are grateful that you have matched anywhere at all. I feel confident that Gus will be sent to the site where we are supposed to be, it's nice to know there is a force bigger than us that looks out for us and helps us make these decisions.  Most internships start over the summer so our lives will be changing in a big way very quickly. Keep us in your thoughts and prayers during this crazy process. We are going on our honeymoon and then the day after we return he gets the email at 7 am telling him where we are going and then on to the next phase, bananas. 


Now you all know how crazy this is, so keep praying for Hermans (and my) sanity. I think Costa Rica will be the perfect cure for the internship blues. Keep your fingers crossed and we will keep you posted on any and all developments :)