The Unpaid Craze
Monday morning I came across a New York Times article on Twitter about the unfair and even illegal implications of unpaid internships. As an experienced internshiper (I know that’s not a real word, but I like it), this is a topic that particularly interests me. I really enjoyed the article. I learned a few new things and it got me pondering. (Click here to read the article).
I never really understood and valued the importance of internships until the end of my junior year of college, when I realized was a little bit behind the game. So, I squeezed in four unpaid internships with local nonprofits during my senior year. It wasn’t until after I graduated that I landed a paid internship with Portland Public Schools.
I certainly wouldn’t consider the internships I had during my senior year to be “illegal.” I never felt like the organizations were taking advantage of me. There was always a mutual benefit.
In fact, to be honest, most of the “internships” really just felt like volunteer work. Would I have liked to be paid? Yes. But I understood and accepted that the field of work I’d chosen requires sacrifices before making it. Even though I was working for free, I felt that the trade off was worth it: a resume line and a few portfolio items.
However, I can understand the frustrations that the students featured in the article must feel. In fact, I have a few frustrations of my own.
Although I have a resume filled with internships, I am still not working full-time in the PR field. I worked my butt off for a year straight to gain the experience and portfolio items I needed for the job I wanted. I have all of that, but not the job. So where did I go wrong?
Well, the answer to that question is a whole other blog post! I won’t get into that, but the point I’m trying to make is that maybe the unpaid internship route isn’t right for everybody and every career path. Take this excerpt from the NY Times article for example:
“In 2008, the National Association of Colleges and Employers found that 83 percent of graduating students had held internships, up from 9 percent in 1992. This means hundreds of thousands of students hold internships each year; some experts estimate that one-fourth to one-half are unpaid.”
According to this statistic, it appears obvious that internships are the standard route to success for many college majors. Although it may not be a graduation requirement, holding an internship (or numerous internships) seems to be an unwritten rule– a big DUH.
I don’t regret any of the unpaid work I did during college, for I gained great experience, but I can’t help but think about where I might be today if I hadn’t of followed along with the norm. (Like I usually do. Go figure).
How and why working for free became the next latest craze is beyond me (granted there ARE paid internships– just more unpaid in my opinion). But if I had to take a punch, I’d say having a competitive edge is one of the biggest driving factors for the increasing popularity of internships, especially unpaid. We all want a packed, impressive resume, and not every company (and especially nonprofit) is going to pay for that. Come to think of it… my resume is worth some big bucks!
So, to wrap up my ranting, I would just like to offer my one grain of salt about about the popularity of unpaid internships. To current students or graduates partaking in unpaid internships: think quality over quantity! Don’t just take any unpaid internship for the resume line or just another of the same thing in your portfolio. Make sure that the internship will be valuable and worth your (free) time. You owe it to yourself.
