.jpg)
On October 5th, 2019, I got accepted to my dream internship in a pediatric hospital with a start of July, 2020. What a relief! I had no stress for my last year of coursework. After years of preparation, I was so close to being a Board-Certified Music Therapist.
In the months after acceptance, I found a wonderful place to live, learned the city’s public transit system, and slowly bought pieces of clothing for the cold winters of Utah. I was ready and full of excitement for the new adventures.
As everyone knows, 2020 is an unprecedented time with various challenges that have never been tackled. With the rise of COVID-19, universities were closed, and internships were postponed indefinitely or canceled. My internship was delayed until October 2020. I was disappointed, but extremely thankful that I still had an internship. I just had to hang on until September then move to Utah and start the next phase of my life. To occupy my time, I took classes, observed various music therapists conducting telehealth sessions, and created massive Zoom meetings with friends, new and old.
In early August, the internship director called me and gave me more bad news. The hospital initiated a new rule. No interns from outside of the region may participate in any internship program. Now my internship was postponed indefinitely. What should I do? Should I sit and wait for the hospital to rescind the ruling, or should I join the many students looking for new internships? If I look for a new place, is it even possible given such short notice? After some thought, I decided to look for a new internship as I was not willing to accept the status quo. I want my diploma. I want to be Board-Certified. I want to go to graduate school.
Luckily, I have chosen a profession full of kind, caring individuals who are eager to share their resources and give a helping hand to those of us in need of help. In a very short amount of time, I was able to locate a fully online internship with a start date of September 8. Even though I am not able to be physically present and experience the full scope of the internship, I am forever grateful for this opportunity. For this reason, I want to give a shout out to Music To Grow On (based in Sacramento, CA) and Bessie Barth, the proprietor and director of the company for giving me this opportunity to continue chasing my dreams.
Livia Umeda
WFMT Student Delegate for North America
