<p>My employer has a large summer internship program, a mix of STEM and some non-STEM. All paid (above minimum wage, sometimes substantially so). Most of the interns are hard-working and talented. The joke is to say to give an impossible problem to a summer intern; they won’t know it’s impossible and they’ll figure out some way to solve it. :)</p>
<p>Many years ago I did have one bad apple, a high school student who totally blew off work when I and another of his immediate supervisors were on vacation. He thought no one was watching in the interim, didn’t come in to work, but continued to fill out his timecard as if he were here 9-5. That was a mistake. :mad: Let’s hope that the humiliation, tongue-lashing and firing that resulted were enough to scare him straight.</p>
<p>I think many of you might enjoy this interview . . .definitely NOT in favor of the unpaid internship. Personally, it wasn’t in line with my views, but it is a fascinating read.</p>
<p>amarylandmom, interesting read indeed! The line "the rising cost of living made it normal to pay a lot of money for basic things. Ordinary life has been redefined as a luxury good. Health care and home ownership are unaffordable for most young people. " is something that I think about a great deal. The spouse and may outearn our parents, may have many seeming “luxuries” compared to the homes we grew up in, but it is our retired parents who have pensions and excellent medical insurance, and who had few to no worries about being laid off.</p>
<p>I thought her take on the ‘internship scam’ was well put: </p>
<p>"It’s not about a skills gap. It’s about a morality gap:
Make higher education worthless by redefining “skill” as a specific corporate contribution. Tell young people they have no skills.</p>
<p>2) With “skill” irrelevant, require experience. Make internship sole path to experience. Make internships unpaid, locking out all but rich.</p>
<p>3) End on the job training for entry level jobs. Educated told skills are irrelevant. Uneducated told they have no way to obtain skills."</p>
<p>I don’t agree with everything she says, particularly toward the end of the lengthy interview. And internships that are not exploitative are, well, not exploitative. But the issues she raises warrant discussion. </p>
<p>There are lots of messages showing the perspectives of parents or students. I will provide a different perspective, that of a hiring manager. </p>
<p>I just reluctantly hired an unpaid intern for the summer. I say reluctantly because it was done primarily as a goodwill gesture to a university professor that consults for us. </p>
<p>Interns, even bright ones, require a good deal of coaching. The more challenging the task, the more coaching is required. Something I could do quickly will require time to explain, time to provide guidance along the way, and time to review his conclusions at the end. </p>
<p>So perhaps ironically, I think that interns that act as gofers deserve to get paid, because they require very little investment from the hiring manager. Interns that do challenging work can be a net drag on productivity, and being unpaid can make sense.</p>
<p>I’m pretty much in your camp, hebegebe, because I have an 18 year old, and I have a pretty good idea of the amount of time it takes to teach him how to do something and then the amount of time before he is doing whatever it is productively and independently. </p>
<p>Let’s just say that I have concluded that perhaps my teaching skills are the issue.</p>
<p>Seriously though, for short term employment, like a summer, by the time the person gets up to speed on the industry, the individual company, and some elements of the job - - the summer is over. </p>
<p>Post college internships, or perhaps co-ops which go for a longer period of time, could be characterized differently. I think most co-ops are paid? But a summer internship . . .I think that sometimes an unpaid internship is the only way it is a win/win for both parties.</p>
<p>My son is also 18 but I do disagree about non-paying for his time. In his biomedical internship he does run simple stress tests and collects data, he is able to do 3D design in UniGraphics and helps with web design (he is responsible for merging the 3D bone designs with the prostheses images). Let’s not forget that he is not being paid a lot of money, just enough to be above minimum wage; so I think he is delivering work, not just causing more work.</p>
<p>The beauty of a summer internship is that it is ONLY 3 MONTHS. </p>
<p>My industry regularly hires summer interns. I have never heard of an instance in my industy where they are not paid, and not paid well. I dread being asked to coach one, because they are a net productivity sink for the person who has to coach them. The coach has to come up w a canned project the intern can perform in a 3 month period (an experienced person can complete these projects in 2 weeks time) and spends a helluva amount of time coaching & supervising the technical aspects of the project and coaching and grooming the intern to give a formal presentation of the results. </p>
<p>But after the 3 months, some of these interns are NOT offered a full time job. To get a summer internship is a competitive process. These interns interview, and the ones who get an internship have impressive transcripts and make a great impression in the interview. But if you get them in the office for 3 months, you find out which ones are the duds. And you get to say goodbye to them for good. My industry views internships as a 3 month job interview.</p>
<p>Imagine what it would cost the company if the dud was offered a full-time job…</p>
<p>For-profit companies should pay interns. If they are not getting ANY value whatsoever by from having interns, then they shouldn’t have interns at all.</p>
<p>Its amusing to watch as some of the people here attempt to justify unpaid internships. This is the thing, if a business did not benefit in one way or another from an intern, THEY WOULDN’T USE THEM. They do benefit of course, in the long run if not the short run, because they not only help train valuable potential employees for the future good of the business but they also find out who NOT to invest large amounts of money in.</p>
<p>Unpaid internships are exploitation and just another way the Baby Boomers have figured out to rob and screw the younger generation, much as the sky high tuitions combined with non dischargeable loans amount to generational theft. That governmental agencies have gotten in on the scam is just an example of how corporations and the government, hand in hand, are corrupt to their cores.</p>
<p>The late great United States. We deserve what we are getting. My generation is the Most Narcissitic that has ever existed in the history of the world and no doubt it was graduates from the top schools that figured out how to screw the younger generation by unpaid internships. </p>
<p>Thankfully we still have an independent judiciary where at least some of the players have integrity, at the District Court level anyway, and called this theft what it was, a violation of the Fair Labor Standard Act.</p>
<p>I have very mixed feelings about internships. On a personal level, they helped our D break into the entertainment industry. She is now an assistant at a top talent agency and did not have to start at the lowest level (mailroom) because of her “experience.” However, despite her great resume, it took longer for her to get a paying job in the industry than she expected because so few entry level jobs exist…because…a lot of the work is being done by unpaid interns and often unpaid interns who have already graduated college!</p>
<p>D basically had to forgo earning any real money during her first 3 years of college. She did try to work retail on weekends during the summer (working 6 or 7 days a week), but her paid hours were minimal. By far the worse summer was when she had to gain college credit from the internship per the company she was working for and the internship ended up costing me about $1,500 for a credit from NYU plus transportation and meals!</p>
<p>By senior year she finally landed a paid internship, so that was a help. She was able to continue working and earning money at the same internship all through senior year.</p>
<p>D learned a great deal doing the internships and really set up a network of professional contacts. But, without doubt, the only children who can afford to do unpaid internships are those with parents who can afford it. So there is a real economic inequity as to who can more easily enter into some fields because of the current system. I see it as part of a student’s education, and have been willing and able to pay for the experience, but many student’s don’t have the same support from their parents. </p>
<p>Curently I’m enjoying my first summer in like 22 years that I don’t have to pay for some program for my daughters. My younger D–who wants to be an art teacher–is actually working and earning money for the summer as an art specialist at a summer camp. So not only is she earning $1,700 for the summer, the positions is actually giving her experience in her field.</p>
<p>But since I would still like her to keep her options open if education jobs don’t improve, I guess it’s art gallery and art museum internships in the future.</p>
I fail to see how how students who are coerced into unpaid internships because entry level jobs have disappeared and internships are now a resume must (and in some cases even required by their colleges) are doing anything as they “see fit”. We have wage and hour laws for a reason. As a Slate article on the case put it today:
"But wait a minute, you might say: These interns werent tricked. They knew the deal when they signed on and agreedand perhaps competedto work for free. But as Judge Pauley pointed out, the Fair Labor Standards Act ‘does not allow employees to waive their entitlement to wages.’ Thats how the law prevents unpaid interns from exerting ‘a general downward pressure on wages in competing businesses.’ "</p>
<p>My understanding is that at least in California internships at federal facilities cannot use unpaid interns. Private corporations, OTOH, can have unpaid interns. Dunno what the situation is in different states, or if maybe there are different rules for different fed agencies.</p>
<p>Seems pretty clear that the market-clearing pay rate for these entry level jobs has fallen to zero, indicating that there are so many job seekers that the employers have no economic need to offer non-zero pay in order to attract quality employees.</p>
<p>Someone thinking about trying to make a career in a sector where unpaid internships are the typical entry level job should really consider that fact carefully and realize that they likely need some financial support from parents to even be able to take the unpaid internships, and the economic implication of an oversupply of job seekers means that one needs to beat a rather large number of competitors to eventually get to a self-sustainable position in that sector.</p>
<p>That does not mean that no one should aim for such a career. But it does mean that people should try to figure out how steep the curve is to reach a self-sustainable position in whatever career paths s/he is considering.</p>
<p>After 1 day at both of my student teaching assignments, I was left to “fend for myself”. And so were a lot of other student teachers I knew.</p>
<p>Yes, student teaching is a requirement for a degree in education and for certification but in addition to doing A LOT of work you receive no pay and have to PAY for 15 credit hours. For what? When my Professor came in twice during the whole semester to see how I was doing?</p>
<p>“This is the thing, if a business did not benefit in one way or another from an intern, THEY WOULDN’T USE THEM”</p>
<p>And if interns didn’t benefit from working for free, THEY WOULDN’T WORK FOR FREE.</p>
<p>It’s a win-win arrangement for the parties involved.</p>
<p>It’s the impact on outside parties that constitute the primary argument against unpaid internships . . .and I think it makes for a very interesting discussion. I feel that the freedom to provide your labor as you see fit should trump the fact that some students cannot afford to work for free and thereby cannot benefit from an unpaid internship.</p>
<p>Others see it differently (apparently many others here, lol). It’s a great discussion, and one I definitely find thought provoking.</p>
<p>Ucbalumnus, I think you make a great point that these industries where the unpaid internships are very prevalent are ones where the entry level jobs are already filled and there is an oversupply of applicants for any given position. </p>
<p>These are very hard areas to break into in many cases, and if there weren’t unpaid internships, I suspect even fewer people would ever be able to break into them. It won’t really matter if the internships are paid or unpaid - - the children whose parents have networks into that specific industry (more likely wealthy), or the children with very prestigious educational backgrounds and access to tremendous alumni networks, will most likely land those jobs. And then, they will also get paid. But the opportunities will be more scarce.</p>