Interview with a Psychology Intern: Reflections from London
In the summer of 2025, I interned abroad in London with CEA CAPA! Over the course of my internship experience, I was also enrolled in CEA CAPA’s Global Internship Course, which included weekly discussions about everyone’s internship experiences, working on our professional skills, and sharing English treats, like Viennese Whirls and Gloucester cheese, provided by our professor.
Ready and dressed for the first day at my internship!
One of the culminating elements of the class was a mock interview arranged by CEA CAPA for a position of our choice.
In this blog post, I challenged myself to explore what it might look like to answer possible future interview questions with my CEA CAPA internship experience at the center:
Q: Hi, welcome in, can you tell us a bit about yourself?
A: Hi, it’s great to meet you! I’m Jessica, and I’m an honors psychology student at UMass Amherst graduating this coming spring. In the past year, I’ve been working on my honors thesis with the LIPS Lab, where we investigate language perception, and serving as a teaching assistant for Honors What Makes Us Human, one of my favorite Psychology classes. Over the summer, I also interned abroad with Rix Inclusive Research, based at the University of East London, which is an organization dedicated to improving the lives of people with disabilities. These experiences have given me the opportunity to do more person-centered and person-facing work, which has helped me realize that I’d like to pursue a helping profession in my future.
Come along for the commute on London’s tube system! To get to Rix from my flat on Holloway Road, I took the Piccadilly, Hammersmith & City, Elizabeth, and DLR lines. It sounds complicated, but I got used to it pretty quickly. I was grateful to have a built-in opportunity to explore so many lines!
Q: I heard you mentioned an internship in London—can you tell me a bit more about that experience?
A: Yes, definitely! I did my internship with Rix Inclusive Research, which is located along the water at Royal Docks. Their focus is on working with and for people with learning disabilities and multiple and profound disabilities, with a focus on assistive technology. They employ people with lived experience with disabilities, known as co-researchers, who they consult with to make decisions that will truly benefit the disabled community. With Rix, I did some research for a collaboration between UEL and Tashkent State Pedagogical University in Uzbekistan, and helped with outreach at the Dialogue Express Cafe, which employs deaf and hard of hearing baristas. I was also able to visit a group living facility, where some of Rix’s co-researchers live, to follow up about how they liked the step trackers that they received from Rix in a previous health technology workshop. I really enjoyed having the opportunity to hear from them about their experiences!
Welcome to Stratford, the home of the Dialogue Express Cafe!
Pictured above, the Royal Docks Centre for Sustainability houses Rix Inclusive Research, my internship location! It also contains the original location of the Dialogue Cafe.
Q: Sounds great! What was it like for you to live and intern in another country?
A: It was amazing! It was my first time in Europe, so it was great just to experience a completely new place, and I really enjoyed the architecture throughout the city. London is so multicultural, and within my internship office, there were people from around the world and with various levels of ability. Beyond that, I got to meet two professors from Cairo for a workshop with Rix about inclusive education as well. I was also able to experience the more relaxed nature of English work culture! Overall, the internship was a unique opportunity to interact with people who have different ways of approaching work and communication, and to practice respectful curiosity and accommodation in response to differences.
Climb aboard the Dialogue Express Cafe for a latte and a chance to learn British Sign Language! They encourage learning at every turn, including in their signage.
Me at the Rix Inclusive Research office, featuring my UEL Staff lanyard!
Q: Can you tell us about a time you received feedback and how you handled it?
A: Sure. Well, as a part of the CEA CAPA internship program, my supervisor and I filled out a Career Readiness Assessment independently, and then I received a combined report of our responses. I got some great feedback on what she considered to be my strengths including dependability, flexibility, and, in fact, good reception of feedback. I also received comments about what I could improve upon, including time management and confidence in decision making. When I read this, it rang true for me, and I’ve since been trying to practice being more mindful about time management and decision making in my daily life. This ranges from letting myself make intuitive decisions about what I should eat for lunch to keeping a paper calendar of big academic deadlines, like for my honors thesis.
Q: In a helping profession, it’s really important to care for yourself too. How do you handle burnout?
A: That’s a great question. I know that it can be emotionally taxing to work in a helping profession, and my time abroad was an opportunity to practice handling that. I wanted to make the most of my six-week experience and say yes to as many opportunities as I could, but I needed to take care of myself too. To do this, I practiced actively making time to recharge alone and get enough sleep, and I wrote out academic and personal bucket lists to help finish out my time abroad successfully. Similarly, in a professional setting, I’d make sure to maintain a good work/life balance by consciously carving out time for myself and really leaning on the loved ones who make up my support system.
Q: In one sentence, what makes you stand out as a candidate?
A: I believe that my experience with Rix learning about self-advocacy, effective communication, and person-centered work has given me a new level of awareness that would translate well to this position.
As part of CEA CAPA’s Global Internship Course, I did a mock job interview over Zoom! My interviewer was Katie Bretherick, who works with Student Support and Wellbeing Services at University College London.
Q: Great, do you have any questions for us?
A: Yes! In my internship, I was interacting with relatively well-adjusted individuals who mainly needed help with daily tasks. In this job, it seems like I’d be working with individuals who need a more intensive level of care. So, I wanted to ask what the training and onboarding period looks like for your employees and what level of supervision I might expect early on versus when I am more established in the position?
Q: Okay, thank you so much! We’ll be in touch.
A: It was great to meet you, thank you so much for your time! I hope to talk with you again soon.
I will be forever grateful for my time abroad in London for both the personal and professional experience I gained. I know that when the time comes, I’ll be ready and excited to talk about my internship abroad with potential employers!
