How much “effort” did you put in during unpaid practicums?

This is a bit of a vent to be transparent so maybe just looking for words of reassurance but I’m having a rough night… I’m on my practicum for my PhD and I’ve gotten two instances of rough feedback on my report writing and therapy skills from a supervisor. This supervisor might just be tough and blunt which would fit their overall demeanor but the feedback has me feeling really shitty as they are asking me to write reports during my in office hours but with the caseload I’ve been given I don’t have enough time there to write good reports, so I’ve been doing some at home. The templates for report writing we’ve been given are very buggy and it’s led to some typos and errors that my supervisor has chastised me for.

Ultimately if I work even harder beyond hours and check my work more I can hopefully remedy some of this, but I’m ultimately feeling sad and very pressured for an unpaid position, and I wanted to ask if this is reasonable. Like I guess I can just accept I won’t ask a letter of rec from this site and just try to get through it and keep it moving but I really don’t know how much diligence I should be putting in for an unpaid position.

I did bring up the lack of enough hours to write good reports and was told “write what you can to make sure you learn but make sure you complete some reports” so maybe I’m overthinking all this.

Posted Dec 8, 2025, 3:26 AM UTC

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