The Internship in a Nut Shell

The internship course is the capstone of the Interpreting department. The course is broken into two courses that can be taken together or separate depending on what will best fit the student’s needs. An Interpreting Internship is when students are able to work in the community with a professional interpreter and benefit from the feedback from both those interpreters and deaf consumers. The internship provides the opportunity for students to put into action all they have learned during their coursework leading up to this point. They will be tested linguistically as well as ethically as they evolve as professionals in the interpreting community. Collegiality and professionalism are stressed as students participate in their internship. The benefits of live practice are tremendous to the development of the student. Below are comments from students who have either just finished their internship or are currently in the internship course.

Student Comments about their Internship Experiences

I did my first internship at Sign Language Specialists in Lee’s Summit, MO. I had the opportunity to work with amazing interpreters; they were very supportive and gave amazing feedback.  I aspire to have the same skills that these interpreters had and it helped motivate me to keep practicing and to get up and interpret.  The clients I worked with were all very supportive, and had a lot of respect for the agency and any other interpreters I was able to work with.
- Hannah Struthers (Grad. May 2009)

I'm having so much fun on my internship.  Normally when we learn something in class we don't think about how it applies in the "real world", but an internship gives us the opportunity to see it work in the field.  My mentor is wonderful at helping me to see my own skills as a positive and not as a negative, as well as giving me different ways to improve.  We also have an online class so that we can get together with others who are also doing their internships, and collaborate on different situations and signs that we've come across and they help provide different solutions.  Between my peers, mentor and internship director I have all the support that I need to learn and gain the experience to be ready to go out and interpret on my own.
-Laura Baron (Grad. May 2009)

Previous Internship Locations:

            Birnbaum Interpreting Services, Washington DC
            Sign Language Specialists, Kansas City, MO
            Deaf Interlink, St. Louis, MO
            Sign Language Associates, Washington, DC
            ASL Services, Inc. Kissimmee, FL
            Access Interpreters LLC. Rocheport, MO
            Missouri School for the Deaf, Fulton, MO
            MERS Goodwill, St. Louis, MO
            Terptheatre, Detroit, MI
            Aspen Camp for the Deaf, Aspen CO