Tag Archives: International

International Students in Psychology: An Overlooked Group?

The number of international students enrolled in U.S. universities declined since the 2016/2017 academic year (Institute of International Education; IIE, 2019). While data for the years 2019/2020 are yet to be released, there is no doubt that trend will continue to decline given the abrasive conditions that foreign students continue to experience in the U.S. With the addition of a pandemic, systemic racism and police brutality, and specific policies differentially targeting immigrants and immigration, international students’ concerns are currently exacerbated by substantial threats to the continuation of their academic journeys and ambitions.

International students in psychology have been uniquely impacted by the institutional changes in response to the syndemic. Some of the direct effects to this population span across the areas of their immigration status, academic responsibilities, career opportunities, financial stability, safety, and mental health and wellbeing. Often these concerns are overlooked or not prioritized.

International Status: The stringent immigration and visa regulations applicable to international students in psychology have compelled them to limit their experiences and access to opportunities. The current syndemic in the U.S. only exacerbates this system. Students are unable to renew their existing visas and/or obtain authorizations for further training, disrupting the sensitive timelines for foreign students and professionals to commence and/or complete training; it also interferes with their ability to remain within status thereby creating extreme worry about lawful presence and work in the U.S.

Academic Responsibilities: Given the unsettling current presentation of COVID- 19 in the U.S., home governments have requested that certain populations return home. While programs have offered online instruction to these students, the significant time differences between the U.S. and students’ home countries have made learning an arduous task and minimally satisfying. Additionally, the inability to be physically present interferes with international students accruing practicum hours to secure externships and internships. As such, international students may be severely hindered in their practical experiences and hour accumulation, ultimately being disfavored when applying for internships and externships.

Career Opportunities: Students in various stages of their program encounter unique situations posed by the syndemic. Those nearing the conclusion of their program (often in the phase of dissertation and/or internship completion) are having to make critical yet unfavorable choices about the future of their career. After having invested 5-6 years of their life in the U.S., often away from family and friends, these students are absolutely hopeless about securing further training positions in the U.S. The current hiring freeze has resulted in international students in psychology returning to their home countries in seek of job opportunities. Further, given the status of psychology in their countries and the students’ subspeciality, these positions may or may not be related to their educational background.

Financial Stability: The budgetary cuts to university grants resulting from the syndemic have directly impacted international students. As a population who by default experiences an array of severe restrictions to the type of work, hours of work, and types of funding they can receive before the syndemic, the budget cuts have threated their financial stability the most. Students are having to rely on family and personal funding to fuel the continuation of their graduate education and livelihoods. These personal funds have to amount to tens and thousands of dollars to meet the unjust semester course requirement and outrageous out-of-state tuition expenses.

Mental health and wellbeing: There is, by default, a natural burden to the one’s mental health and wellbeing that comes with being a foreign student. Having to leave family and friends and start an educational journey while also attempting to maintain academic tasks, obtain financial stability, adjust to the cultural differences, navigate the international paperwork and immigration updates, and find social support are just a few. Unfortunately, the syndemic only worsened the circumstances for this population, where students are unable to travel to visit their families or fear the return to the U.S. upon leaving. Additional stressors are related to the lack of support and direction international students are receiving from their programs, departments, and international offices on campus, often leaving students to advocate for themselves. Furthermore, the same time zone and physical presence restrictions that impact practicum work restrict the ability of international students to access campus resources, even when they are available. These times can be truly isolating.

International students are truly resilient, persistent, and fearless individuals (Lee, 2013) and under the toughest circumstances, they are also helpful to one another. However, this population is needing and deserving of more systemic and institutional regard to navigate these new regulations, now more than ever. By providing limited to no support or advocacy, governing bodies, programs, departments, and intuitions are neglecting and overlooking a population that significantly contributes to a portion of the cultural and ethnic diversity in the field of psychology.

References:
Institute of International Education. (2019). Open Doors 2019 infographics. Retrieved from http://opendoorsiie.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/Open-Doors-Graphics-2019.pdf

Lee, K. C. (2013) Training and educating international students on professional psychology: What graduate programs should know. Training and Education in Professional Psychology, 7(1), 61-69. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0031186

International Students & Internship: Thoughts from Training Directors

It’s that time of year again…the beginning of internship applications! This is certainly a stressful time in the life of many psychology graduate students, however, internship applications can be particularly tricky for international students who have additional residency and visa issues to navigate. The American Psychological Association of Graduate Students is excited to release the second video in our series on international students applying for internship. As a complement to our first video featuring international students navigating the internship process, this video highlights the perspectives of training directors. We interviewed five training directors to learn about their experiences with international students on internship.

Here are a couple key themes that came up across our interviews:

  • Institutional support can go a long way: Interviewees that had resources at their training site (i.e., international student services, an HR department familiar with international hiring processes, attorneys on staff) felt better able to navigate the visa process with their interns. By contrast, training directors at smaller sites without international hires, commented on feeling lost during the visa process in particular. For training directors in this position, there seemed to be a dearth of centralized resources available. Interviewees suggested the development of specific resources such as a “living document” with current information on the necessary steps for the internship match, that could be shared in CCTCP, and for the development of a liaison through APPIC.
  • International students benefit clients, staff, and the training site: All interviewees commented on the incredible value that international students can add to a training site. Training directors noted a number of skills, such as language abilities, specific cultural competencies, and the opportunity for other trainees and psychologists to learn from the diverse perspectives of the international student interns. Essentially, training directors reflected that once they were able to get their international interns up and running at their site, the benefits of bringing in an international applicant outweighed the difficulties of getting them in the door.

What are your thoughts? Do you have resources you want to share for training directors or international students navigating internship? We want to hear from you in the comments!

Check out the first video in this series!

International Students and the Internship Process

International_Flags_GlobePsychology graduate students face unique struggles compared to graduate students in other fields, as we are expected to be self-reflective, engage in self-care, and also examine our ability to work with others while making sure that we dedicate most of our time to work. The balance often becomes a very tricky process to negotiate. International students in graduate psychology programs experience additional barriers in comparison to their domestic counterparts, as they have to navigate local and national policies, immigration requirements, paperwork, and experiences of discrimination, on top of academic requirements. Further, it is not unusual for international students to feel isolated, especially in smaller programs where the international student community is scarce. In addition to cultural adjustment and a possible language barrier, international students also have to plan a timeline carefully to ensure they are up to date on immigration documentation. One of the most stressful experiences for international students in clinical, counseling, and school psychology programs is applying for the clinical internship. International students face unique challenges in this process, including a reduced number of sites that accept individuals without US citizenship or permanent residency.

The following video focuses specifically on the internship application process for international students, and provides insights and advice from international students who have successfully navigated this process. APAGS and APAGS-CARED have developed this short video to help international students feel more comfortable applying to their doctoral internship.

Some international students that have been through this process have provided the following advice:

• Ensure that there is enough time to plan for documentation of legal status
• Be resilient
• Be persistent
• Find mentorship from other international students
• Develop a close relationship with DCTs (Directors of Clinical Training)

Please check out the video below of interviews with international students who successfully matched on internship. The video was developed through a collaboration of APAGS and APAGS-CARED, and was edited by Nathanael Castro.

APA in Cuba

Buy the ticket, take the ride. A phrase coined by a very good friend and an itinerant traveler in his own right, the words and underlying meaning were never truer than on my recent trip with APA to Cuba.

When I first received the email alert back in February with subject line: “Psychologists to travel to Cuba,” I was excited beyond words and a bit resigned to the fact that my efforts to save money (I had just decided to give up my apartment in downtown Palo Alto and move back in with my parents) would be temporarily put on hold: there was no way I could miss this trip.

As an undergrad at UCLA, I minored in Latin American studies; Cuba, in particular, was one of my favorite topics of study. I was fascinated by this group of revolutionaries that had overthrown their government in order to make a vast departure from the political structure of the western world. I had also learned about their first-rate education system, with literacy rates higher than those of the United States, and socialized health care despite having little to no access to many goods and services.

The opportunity to travel to learn about their health care system as part of my current training inclinical psychology seemed like it would be an invaluable aspect of my professional growth; even though I knew that I would be in the midst of internship application deadlines at the time of the trip, I had to go.

Landing in Cuba really was like going back in time 50 yearscuba neighborhood – old Fords and Plymouth convertibles, no advertisements for any goods and services except for those promoting public health and supporting ‘la revolucion’, and crumbling architecture representing the remains of both Soviet and colonial influence.

The week consisted of visits with psychologists from the Cuban Ministry of Public Health, investigators involved in community based participatory research, and practitioners at local clinics and community mental health sites, where we learned in-depth about the comprehensive model of Cuban health care. An opportunity to see the famed Buena Vista Social Club perform live was a special treat and very moving.

As the only graduate student on the trip, I found myself among established psychologists from all over the country – professionals working in VA medical centers, hospitals, universities, private practice, and various capacities for APA – and inspired by the range of their experience and depth of their careers. At the end of each day’s activities, trip leader and Past APA President Suzanne Bennett Johnson would facilitate a debrief session on the thoughts, impressions, and questions that remained with us from the day. Hearing how my fellow group members crafted their questions, provided feedback, and articulated their interests and impressions of the trip, gave me a glimpse into the thought processes of these highly trained, well experienced clinicians, researchers, and doctors. And for the first time I found myself in an interaction with psychologists that wasn’t supervisor/supervisee or advisor/student, but rather as a peer and junior colleague. Being a Spanish speaker and having studied Latin America, I had much of my own unique knowledge to bring to the group, which was a really important moment for me in my development as a psychologist in training – a ‘taking-my-place-at-a-seat-at-the-table’ kind of feeling.

Upon my return, I shared my experience during my Spanish-speaking group supervision at one of my current training sites – a community mental health clinic which provides services to monolingual Spanish speakers. Intrigued by my account of the week, my peers asked how I became involved with the trip and whether my attendance had to do with membership in any particular APA division or group. I explained that while I am a member of APA, in this case, the trip came about just from noticing an email. To which, one of my colleagues responded ‘La moraleja de la historia: lea los emails’.
Buy the ticket, take the ride, and read the emails.

APA group with Cuban researchers at the Center for Psychological and Sociological Investigation

APA group with Cuban researchers at the Center for Psychological and Sociological Investigation