Interdisciplinary SIP 593

Psychology majors have the option of registering for an interdisciplinary SIP 593 supervised by the Psychology department. An SIP 593 does NOT carry a unit of credit that counts for the Psychology major, but does count as a unit of credit towards graduation and does satisfy the SIP graduation requirement. SIP 593’s are most often completed in summer before the senior year and are one unit. They are intended to give students flexibility to design a project that will be beneficial for them without having to adhere to the guidelines of a particular discipline. Most SIP 593s include a reflection that demonstrates how the student sees the project as connecting to their college coursework and to their future goals and career plans. If you want information on a Psychology SIP that will count for Psychology credit then please visit our Psychology SIP page.

Interdisciplinary SIP 593 Models

Most SIP 593s that we supervise in the Psychology department fall into one of four broad categories. However, if you have an idea that doesn’t fit squarely into one of these, it is probably possible to make it work!

In this type of SIP 593, students create something that showcases their interest in Psychology but is not a traditional academic Psychology paper. Students turn in both the creative product as well as a reflection about their process, how the creative work exemplifies various principles, and how the project has affected their future goals. To be successful with this kind of SIP, students must have strong skills in the creative domain in which they are working (e.g., art, creative writing, etc.)

• Write a series of children’s books that would be useful for a speech language pathologist working with bilingual children. Explain in the reflection how the books exemplify particular principles.
• Produce a series of podcast episodes that narrates an original story about a world where people have stopped dreaming. Explain in the reflection how various plot elements were inspired by Psychological theories of dreaming.
• Paint several works that capture various ways to think about mental illness. Explain in the reflection how each painting is related to a Psychological theory about mental illness.

In this type of SIP 593, students engage in a sustained experience over multiple weeks of the summer and write a reflection that relates their experiences to their college coursework and to their future plans.

• Work full time for the summer as a camp counselor
• Organize and run a weekly support group for a particular population
• Organize a community action project (e.g., a diaper drive)
• Intern 20 hours a week in the marketing department of a company

In this type of SIP 593, students gather information related to some topic that would be of interest to a particular group of people. Rather than writing an academic paper or literature review about the topic, the student creates something that would be particularly good at disseminating the information to their intended audience. This type of SIP often involves interviewing one or more relevant people or experts, in addition to consulting sources available on the web and in print

• Explore the career of Speech Language Pathology and create a website for K College Psych majors about how to pursue this career
• Describe Psychological principles of communication in a series of YouTube videos aimed at athletic coaches

In this type of SIP 593, the student embarks on a multi-month process of structured self-exploration. The student keeps journals of their experiences and writes a final reflection that describes the highlights. To be successful with this type of SIP, students must have a clear framework they will use to guide them on their reflective journey.

• Read the self-help book “Designing a Life” and work through the activities to ultimately settle on the student’s own direction for their professional life. Keep a a blog that applies the concepts from the book to life and present in the first year forum series in Fall to share key ideas with incoming students.
• Learn about art therapy and use some of its main techniques to help combat chronic pain over several months. Include both the art that was created during the exercise as well as a reflection that describes the art therapy techniques used and observations about how the art helped (or didn’t help) the pain.

Frequently Asked Questions

The main pro to doing an SIP 593 is that there is a lot of flexibility to design a project that you feel passionate about. Further, if done well, an SIP 593 can result in the development of new skills and a final product that you feel proud of, two things that can make excellent topics of conversation in future job interviews! Some types of SIP 593s may be helpful for some graduate programs—for example, masters of social work programs would find experience running a support group or volunteering at the YWCA as a plus.

The main con to doing an SIP 593 is that you are not strengthening your academic writing or research skills, as you would with a PSYCH SIP. Research experience and strong writing skills are two of the most important things that graduate programs in Psychology look for. In most cases, students who want to pursue a PhD in Psychology would be better-served doing a Psych SIP rather than an SIP 593. Further, even if you aren’t sure what you want to do in the future, doing a Psych SIP can help you decide whether you enjoy sustained research and writing about a specialized topic in Psychology. If you don’t try it, you will never know, and if you opt out now, you may find that it is harder to go down that path later.

A final note about the SIP 593—you will get out of it what you put into it. Students who design a project that is meaningful to them and put a lot of effort into reflecting deeply, overcoming challenges along the way, and making the final product as good as it can be typically have great experiences! On the other hand, students who simply “go through the motions” and complete the bare minimum to meet the requirements will get their SIP credit, but will likely not find the experience very transformative or beneficial for their future. Your project is really your responsibility to do with what you will. You can make it awesome or you can let it be ho-hum. The choice is yours.

When students choose to embark on this kind of unique project, they are taking on the responsibility for having (or learning) the skills they need to successfully complete the project on their own. The SIP coordinator is available to help students with deadlines, to read drafts of the reflection, or to provide feedback on the work, but in most cases, the SIP coordinator is not able to help with the specifics of an SIP 593 project (e.g., creating a webpage, painting, community organizing, etc. are not within the SIP coordinator’s expertise.)

Because an SIP 593 earns a unit of academic credit, the work involved should approximate the work involved in a course at Kalamazoo College. We estimate this to be about 100 hours. Although there is some flexibility here, thinking about a “100-hour project” can help you imagine a project of an appropriate scope. If you have an internship lined up that is 10 hours a week for 10 weeks, you do not need to do much beyond that—documenting your hours and writing a short reflection is fine. On the other hand, if you have an opportunity to shadow someone in a profession for a day (~8 hours), that experience alone is not enough for a SIP 593, unless you add additional things to it (e.g., doing additional research about the profession, interviewing additional people, putting together an original website that describes the profession, engaging in substantial self-reflection about whether the career is right for you, making connections between the profession and your college coursework, etc.). Similarly, organizing and holding a single three-hour event on campus might not be enough, but leading a support group that meets every week for many weeks (combined with reflection) could be. The intent of completing the SIP 593 proposal is to work with the SIP supervisor to make sure that your project is of an appropriate scope.

The first step is to complete our departments SIP 593 proposal, in which you detail the project you plan to complete. This form should be turned in to the SIP coordinator, and will usually require a meeting with the SIP coordinator to discuss, clarify, and adjust the plans for the SIP 593. Once the proposal has been approved by the coordinator, the student may register for the SIP with the registrar. Summer SIPs must be registered by the end of spring quarter.

It depends on the project, but in most cases, no. IRB approval is needed only if you are collecting data from human participants and will use that data as the basis of research. In most SIP 593 projects, students are not collecting data from human participants. You can interview people about their profession or experiences without having IRB approval, as long as the purpose of the interview is to gain information from the person about a topic they know something about that you do not. Further, you can write about observations you make of other people in a support group, internship, or otherwise without having IRB approval, as long as the focus of your writing is on your own thoughts and feelings. Of course, you should always provide pseudonyms for individuals and avoid describing anyone in any individually-identifiable way.

For example, if you are working at a camp, it is fine to write about observations you made of two campers who got into an argument and how they resolved it, as long as the focus is on your own role in this process. “e.g., after observing a disagreement between campers A and B, I had to think quickly to help Camper A refocus her attention on something else before this incident ruined her whole day. I realized that even relatively small interventions from me could help turn a negative incident around for the campers.”

It would NOT be okay to make observations about the campers that are focused on them or to use the campers as research for some question without having IRB approval. E.g., “While working at the camp, I was interested in how campers dealt with group conflict. I asked several campers to share with me how they were feeling after an altercation with another camper. One said… Another said… I found that…”ßThis is research that would need IRB approval and consent from all the campers and their parents in order to do.

If you have questions about whether your project needs IRB approval, please speak with your SIP coordinator and/or the current chair of the Kalamazoo College IRB.

Each reflection will be unique, just as each SIP 593 is unique. However, all reflections should begin with a clear explanation of what you did for your SIP. For an experiential SIP, where were you working, for how many hours/weeks, and what were your main responsibilities in the position? For the other SIP 593 types, what were your goals setting out, how did you structure your time, and what did you end up producing?

Many SIP 593 reflections will connect observations/content of the project to course content or to psychological principles. When doing this, you should attempt to make connections to multiple courses if you can (consider thinking about courses that are not as “obviously” related to your topic or position as well as those that are). When linking observations or elements of your project to psychological principles, you should include citations to published literature wherever possible.

Finally, remember that good writing is clear, organized, and credible. A well-written reflection should provide the reader with plenty of concrete examples to illustrate your points. Try not to over-simplify or sugar-coat your experiences too much. Including examples of struggles that you had and overcame along the way can lend credibility and depth to your reflection. Your reflection should flow well, leading the reader through your SIP journey and ending with some clear ideas about how this SIP was beneficial for you.

Each SIP 593 is given to a member of the Psychology faculty to read and consider. That faculty member makes a decision about whether the project should earn credit or not. Each project is considered with respect to scope (was this a project that seems to approximate the work of a Kalamazoo College class?) and the student’s level of reflection (does the student seem to have made connections with their coursework? Does it seem they have personally grown through the project?). SIP 593s can earn “honors” in situations where multiple faculty members agree that the student really went above and beyond the standard expectation with respect to the quality of the ultimate product and/or the depth of reflection exhibited.

It really depends on the nature of the project. At a minimum, all students must turn in a title page and a one-page abstract for the college and departmental SIP archive that describes the basics of the project they did. This abstract could include links to outside sources where the final product of your SIP can be viewed (in the case of a webpage or youtube video, for example), or could be accompanied by the product that was produced (prints of paintings, book manuscript, etc.). Most SIP 593s also include a 5-10 page reflection that describes what was done for the project, makes connections with the student’s coursework, and provides reflection on how the project has affected the student’s future plans. Students who complete an experiential SIP may choose to include pictures of the experience and/or letters of support from their supervisor or co-workers. In many cases, it is also beneficial to include a log of the hours you worked in your internship or on your SIP.

Ultimately, the product you turn in for your SIP is the only way the faculty member reading it has to know about the amount of work that went in to your SIP. As such, you should aim to be very clear about all the tasks that were involved and the amount of time spent on each. You might include, for example, a table that shows all the tasks you completed and how much time each took. There is often a lot of “behind the scenes” work that occurs with any project. For example, learning how to design a website or practicing with various software is work that might not be immediately apparent from viewing the final product. Finding and contacting various experts to try to set up an interview could be a process that takes a surprising amount of time. It is up to you to convey that work if you want the faculty member reading it to know about it.

SIP 593s supervised by the Psychology department follow the same deadlines as Psychology SIPs. One unit summer SIPs will be due (printed and bound in a SIP binder) Friday of Week 1 of Fall term. A draft will typically be due to the SIP ccoordinator for feedback 2-3 weeks before that. Please ask your SIP coordinator if you are not sure.

The Psychology department does not have funding to support SIP 593 projects. Depending on the project, there may be funding opportunities through other departments or centers on campus, such as ARCUS or the CCPD. Note that some students use a paid internship or job as the basis for an SIP 593.

No, students who complete an SIP 593 do not have to present their work publicly. SIP 593’s are not typically included in the Psychology Van Leire SIP symposium, although students who really want to present theirs should reach out to the SIP coordinator to see if it might be possible. Further, some students may wish to incorporate a public presentation into the scope of their SIP 593. For example, students may wish to hold a campus event to disseminate information they gathered during their SIP 593 project or to share some aspect of their experience with the broader Kalamazoo college community. In most cases, if a student wishes to do this, it is built in as part of the SIP 593 during the proposal stage.