Daria Leshchynska has been searching for an internship non-stop for almost eight months now. All on her own. She is from Ukraine and studies psychology in Groningen. ‘In the beginning I didn’t know at all which institutions I should have been contacting’, Leshchynska says. She lost a lot of time trying to get the information she needed and got little help from the department. ‘International internship coordinators are not responsive or helpful’, she explains – and they often don’t know enough to help students find a position relevant to their fields. ‘I was hoping there would be much more information about who to approach.’

Turkish Clinical Psychology student Berna Osmanoğlu couldn’t agree more. She came to the RUG to make better professional connections in Europe so she wouldn’t have to pay for an internship in Turkey. She’s been searching since October and still hasn’t found a suitable position. ‘At the beginning I thought that maybe the university might help but unfortunately they don’t’, Osmanoğlu says. ‘Once, I went to the university career center and talked with someone who could help with the application process. Afterwards, they never responded to me.’

Osmanoğlu is still waiting anxiously for answers from many internships which she applied to. ‘If I’d known finding an internship was that hard, I would have preferred another university,’ she says.

No network

Is the struggle to find internships unique to international students? Konstanze Strohm, Commissioner of Internationalisation at Psychology study association VIP, says it’s not easy for anyone. But international students lack language fluency and access to the networks that often lead to jobs for their Dutch peers.

Many Dutch students start building professional networks at the bachelor level, says Strohm. ‘They get practical experience by having a side-job or something next to their study that’s related to their field. I’ve heard of quite a few Dutch students who do voluntary work or some work related to their study. But as an international that’s nearly impossible.’

Social connections give Dutch students an edge as well, says Strohm. ‘Often you get an internship because you know somebody who knows somebody, or who can recommend something. As an international you just don’t have that network of people.’

Frustrating

Internship coordinator Mirjam Lommen, from the department of Psychology, says she works extensively to secure internships for students, by calling on her personal networks, emailing institutions, and even leaving her private cell phone number with internship providers. Lommens says the internship process is also frustrating for the RUG, especially when other institutions continue to be unresponsive – despite her best efforts.

Lommen says her department curates a list of institutions that have reserved internships for Dutch RUG students. And while there are never enough of these positions to go around, Lommen says, the department does the work of organising what internships are available.

Osmanoğlu would like to see a similar network developed for international students. ‘The university could help via their connections with some institutions. If they gave us a list of potential places – or maybe if this is too much for them – at least help students with workshops about how to find an internship.’

The department has created a new database to alleviate the problem; students can enter information about about their current internships abroad so that future students will know where to start their own searches. The department also begins the year with an information event about internships, conducts a follow-up in February, and provides students with four scheduled consultation hours per week.

Credit problems

But these measures can only help so much, explains Lommen, because the internship credit system also gives Dutch students an edge. International Psychology students in Groningen are limited to 11 ECTS for an internship; Dutch students get 19 ECTS. This is because Dutch students do their internships part-time over 4 to 5 months, while internships for internationals take place full-time in a single block of 8 weeks. Lommen says many Dutch institutions prefer longer internships, which may give Dutch students an advantage.

And different international students face different degrees of difficulty, say Lommen. German students may have an easier time than other internationals. ‘There are quite a lot of internships in Germany, and they are quite used to these kind of internships, especially the short-term 8-week ones.’

Painful

But Leshchynska and Osmanoğlu aren’t German. They don’t have access to the short-term positions in Germany or the long-term positions in the Netherlands. And so their search continues.

‘Eventually, I guess I will do my internship in Turkey,’ says Osmanoğlu. Doing so will cost her both finances and her ambition of making long-term professional connections in Europe. ‘For me, not finding an internship here is painful.’

Dutch