Undergraduate Field Experience Checklist

Before you can register for PY435: Undergraduate Field Experience, the following steps need to be completed:

1. Attend mandatory informational meeting held by the Field Education Director to go over the potential placement sites. It is advisable to do this the semester before you want to enroll in PY435: Field Experience in Psychology. Before you can interview at a supervision site, you must have an approved and signed Undergraduate Field Experience permission form from the director of undergraduate field experience. The director will sign the approval form during your appointment, then you will be eligible to start interviewing at the supervision sites.
2. Interview at one (or several) sites. It is permissible to interview at more than one site at a time. If you chose to do that, it is important to let the sites know you are interviewing at several different places. When your placement is settled upon, it is equally important to contact those other interview sites and let them know you will not be able to work with them next term. This is because sites often mentally "hold" a spot for you and will not interview another potential intern in anticipation of your coming.
3. Once you and your site have agreed upon your interning there, the site will need to send the Director of Field Education a letter of offer to that effect. The letter needs to state: 
      -  Your start and end dates
      -  The number of hours (120) to be completed
      -  Description of what your duties will be
      -  Description of the supervision to be provided (nature and amount)
   Additionally, the site needs to confirm that they will provide a written evaluation of your performance and a recommended grade at the end of the term.The director of field education has the option of lowering the grade if you have not completed the additional on-campus component to the course.
4. The letter of offer from your site supervisor must arrive and then be approved by the Field Education Director PRIOR to beginning the off-campus internship experience. You cannot register until the letter of offer has been received and approved. (You may check with the Field Education Assistant on the status of letter arrival).
5. Once the site has forwarded the Field Education Director the above letter of offer, you can register for the course. To register, you need to do the following:
      -  Have the Field Education Director approve and sign your registration form during the drop/add period
6. Register for PY435. If you are not able to register for PY435 during normal registration, then you need to register for it during the following time window—anytime after six courses have been added in the semester before you extern until the day of add/drop in the semester you are enrolling in PY435.

Also, be aware that:

• You cannot begin your field experience until you are registered for the course and the semester has begun. Hence, you cannot start on the placement the first day of the semester if you have not technically registered yet. Also, you cannot "stockpile" some hours at the placement before the semester begins even if you are registered for the course.
• It is the student's responsibility to arrange for transportation to and from their placement. Loyola's policy does not allow students to use the car/van pool for undergraduate internships.
• Remember once you have committed to a site, that commitment needs to be honored. They are counting on you to complete the field experience. Only in extremely unusual circumstances do students not complete the placement once committing (e.g., leave of absence from the University, etc). Re-evaluation of one's schedule and feeling that you are over-extended is not sufficient reason to drop out of a placement once you have agreed to intern there. Therefore, it is important to make sure you can complete the placement before agreeing to it.