Mindyra, Darien, CT
My summer internship with Mindyra was transformative professionally and personally. Mindyra is a mental health technology startup that was created in 2015 to tackle the growing issue of mental health needs among employees and college students. Mindyra aims to partner with corporations and college campuses to provide their online mental health resources to a wide pool of people. Mindyra’s platform is like a journey within an online portal; through a nine-question survey, it first screens for most mental health disorders as well as their impact on daily life. Based on the answers, Mindyra provides a variety of vetted educational and self-help resources as well as access to a licensed professional. The user can then choose between resources and be in control of their treatment. Mindyra’s platform is unique in many ways, but the progress tracking aspect is especially cool; once a month, users fill out a progress report survey that tracks success through functional measures. This ties into Mindyra’s focus on data-driven outcomes and the improvement of mental healthcare overall.
I got to do a variety of work this summer. First, I explored Mindyra’s mental health platform and made suggestions of improvements related to user experience and about resources. I also analyzed the mobile app that Mindyra plans to launch and aimed to improve user experience and ease of use. I wrote blog posts regarding relevant mental health topics in athletics and created graphics for each of them using Canva; they will be featured on Mindyra’s website to help increase website traffic. I conducted research with the other intern and gave a presentation at the end of the summer. We focused on current college mental health resources, what’s missing, some unique challenges faced by college students, and potential partners for Mindyra. I specifically focused on the resources that Williams offers and the unique mental health challenges of student athletes and sexual assault victims, and I suggested partnering organizations for Mindyra that were already prevalent in the college mental health world.
This internship solidified my passion for working for a company in the healthcare industry. I was able to learn about the business side of Mindyra as well as analyze and improve the mental health product they sell, relying on my academic psychology experience. I especially enjoyed researching other companies and brainstorming what partnerships could grow both Mindyra’s profits and the number of people using the platform. Additionally, I learned how important company culture is to me and how it will impact my future career choices. I really enjoyed the energy within a startup and how passionate everyone was to be there. It was so easy to get to know and learn from many different people in the company, and I look forward to keeping in touch with them.
Thank you so much to Mr. and Mrs. Case for making this summer possible. This internship was truly incredible, and I am so thankful to have had this opportunity. Another thank-you to the ’68 Center for Career Exploration for their help and support always.