Internships for Undergrads

I hear a lot of bashing about unpaid internships, even at not-for-profit organizations. As an intern coordinator at a small not-for-profit, I can tell you that we watch every penny and that what we do with our donor’s money matters to them and is scrutinized by them. It’s difficult for some organizations to find the money in their already-tight budget, and even more difficult to justify allotting it to internships when frequently, we could get a volunteer to do the same tasks. (I’m not saying that interns and internships aren’t valuable to both parties; just presenting the situation from a financial perspective.)

In fact, we could just call everyone a volunteer but we know it looks better on a student’s resume to have an internship AND our staff feel strongly about mentoring them. So we save the tasks that require training and staff guidance, and that will provide valuable experience. We package those tasks into semester projects, set up a framework of accountability for both student and supervisor, require a regular schedule, and call it an internship.

We do work hard to get internships subsidized by external entities when we can – we have an agreement with one department in a local university that provides stipends equal to the amount of course credit for students who major in their department and accept an internship from us. It’s not payment, but it does help.

P.S. my D15 is still looking for a summer internship. If she finds one that is at a not-for-profit, H and I have already agreed to cover her costs so she can have the experience.

@NerdMom88 I believe no kid should be denied an opportunity because he was born poor or of modest means.

You know…unpaid internships used to be called “volunteering”. And paid internships used to be called “summer jobs”.

If someone needs to work in the summers, that is fine. A job shows commitment and responsibility.

My children attended private colleges. If a student was on scholarship or the dean’s list they were guaranteed an internship. If the internship was unpaid the college provided an equivalent stipend.

@elguapo1 I agree, and if a company or corporation can afford to pay for interns, they should. If they can’t, should they not offer the opportunity to those who want it? Our summer internships are set up to be flexible and leave time for students to work as well, and almost all of them – from all walks of life – do so.

I’m also with @thumper1. This is partially a matter of semantics. (See my earlier comments.) We could just have volunteers, but because society thinks internships are vital we set up some tasks within that format as well.

My issue is only with “illegal” unpaid internships, which is what my daughter was offered. Those are internships that don’t meet the government criteria for unpaid internships - ones where there really isn’t a benefit to the student and the student is just considered free labor. There are many valuable unpaid internships out there, and if a student can afford to do them, they can be a huge benefit. Just because a company isn’t paying the student doesn’t mean it doesn’t cost the company anything, either. I worked for a financial institution that had interns (of the paid variety), and the amount of regular employee time that was spent training and mentoring those interns really added up and definitely surpassed the value they added. You need to be really careful with unpaid internships, though, and ask pointed questions to make sure that there really is a benefit to the student - like training and mentoring and the opportunity to do meaningful work in your field.

Aren’t internships supposed to have a learning component that differentiates them from the “summer job” and volunteering? My experience is clearly very limited, but my kids usually had to write papers and do presentations at internships that they never had to do as part of a job or volunteer activity.

^ Ideally, yes.

D took an unpaid internship with a non-profit last summer, but also got funding from her school for living expenses, which allowed her to live and save some $ for the following year.

Unpaid internships may or may not be legal. Here is the 6 part test from the Department of Labor.

https://www.dol.gov/whd/regs/compliance/whdfs71.pdf

Basically it comes down to whether there is an educational benefit and the employer gets no economic benefit from it.

It sounds like @NerdMom88 is probably doing it right.

My high school senior is currently applying for internships and is finding it very difficult to locate anything appropriate–even for years into the future. First of all, in her desired field they are almost all unpaid. She doesn’t mind that in theory, but since she already did unpaid internships for the last 2 summers and expects she will need to do the same for 3 more years, it would be nice if eventually as a college junior she could receive at least a small stipend to cover transportation costs! Secondly, most internships specify the student not only be enrolled in college but be in his/her JUNIOR year of undergraduate education. Many say they’d prefer college seniors or first year master’s students. Third, a lot of jobs are in suburban or rural locations and require the student have his/her own vehicle–not an issue for many, but it would be for her since the cost of just car insurance in our state is astronomical.

My S who was a business major did internships over most summers in college (one paid, one unpaid).

My D who was a psychology major stayed at her college to do research full time with a professor for two summers (and continued working part-time while school was in session) and that proved to be extremely valuable (she will co-author on a paper in a peer reviewed journal) so I would say that is another good alternative when it is an option.