After applying: prepare to be interviewed

Not all internship programs interview applicants, and they may only interview the applicants they're interested in, but being prepared for an interview can help you be successful if you get the opportunity.

Internship interviews may be in person, but often they'll be over the phone, so that applicants aren't forced to travel. And phone interviews have one major advantage: you can use notes. You should treat a phone interview like an open book test, and if there's any information you don't want to forget to cover, make sure you have it on hand to look at during the interview.

A good way of preparing for an interview that you can do on your own is answering interview questions before the interview. You can find plenty of practice interview questions through an online search. While you may finding very generic job interview questions, these can still be asked in an interview for an internship, and several were asked when I did my interviews. Using these questions, you can practice answering, and even write out answers to these questions. If you practice this way, you won't be left surprised by a generic interview question, and won't have to waste time trying to come up with an answer on the fly.

Another option for preparing for an interview is to actually practice interviewing. Some schools offer a service that will let you hold a practice interview with trained faculty, and there are businesses out there that offer the same thing. This may be more time consuming, and more costly, but if you're someone who had great difficulty interviewing, or becomes very anxious, you might benefit from this type of practice.

Being prepared for an interview can help you be more successful during one if that's what's required by the program(s) you apply to. Don't be afraid to use notes during a phone interview!

Choosing where to apply: be open minded.

While staying where you live now, and especially doing an internship at the school where you are completing or completed your undergraduate degree is probably the most preferable for many people, being open minded about where to intern has many benefits as well.

One good piece of advice my undergraduate program director gave me was: apply to at least one program out of state. This was likely because California is a state where many of the internships have a huge amount of competition for openings. Even if you are a very competitive applicant, rather than endure the scramble, making an out of state or at least less competitive program your fifth or last choice is not a bad idea. If your current situation allows you the flexibility to move, especially out of state, take advantage of that flexibility, as moving to do an internship may not always be an option (a lot can change in 6 months or a year).

A distance internship is a great option for those who don't have the opportunity or willingness to move a far distance. The primary disadvantage of applying to a distance internship is that you have to set up your own rotations. And if you don't have a good network of people to act as preceptors (people who supervise you while you work as an intern) or to help you meet people who could be a preceptor, a distance internship may not be a viable option. The secondary disadvantage is the possibility of not matching after going through a tremendous amount of effort to find preceptors and arrange your rotations. However, you aren't limited to applying to just one distance internship program. If you go through the time and effort to arrange your rotations, you can apply to several distance programs with those same rotations. Distance internships may also have openings in the scramble, and several did during the spring 2009 matching period.

Internships beyond your comfort zone may also offer unique benefits you couldn't find close to home. You may find a combined internship and masters degree program, like I found at Marywood University. An internship with a stipend to help your financial situation could present itself, such as a military internship like the U.S. Military Dietetic Internship Consortium - Army program. Or you could find a very short internship, like the University of Houston one, which would only take you away from home for 27 weeks.

The internship closest to you isn't the only option out there for becoming a Registered Dietitian. So when choosing where to apply look outside of your immediate area and you may end up pleasantly surprised by what you find.

Source(s): Applicant Guide to Supervised Practice. (2009)., D & D Digital. (2007). D & d digital. Retrieved from http://www.dnddigital.com/