<p>I held two internships while I was in college. The first one was in pro baseball and it was quite a bit of observing. Got to do some hands-on stuff, but closely monitored by my supervisor in large part. Was a good experience and definitely gave me a step up on others. My second one was working summer camps and it was an AMAZING experience. You want to talk about a “real” internship… the four of us interns did everything except pay the bills We had a lot of control as far as scheduling went, we were responsible for treatments, evaluations, tons of paperwork, and everything in between. Sometimes we had close supervision; other times we were a phone call away from the supervisor. Definitely gave me a BIG step up over my peers…</p>
<p>Wow that’s really terrible that colleges do this. All I had to do was hand my university a copy of the internship offer letter and they put it on my transcript for free.</p>
<p>^Are you sure it was “free”? If the college is giving you course credits for it, then some of your tuition is going toward that. You don’t get charged extra for those credits which are within the maximum allowed per semester for the standard tuition rate, but you could be taking other courses for those credits. At D1’s college, for example, the maximum number of credits per semester is 18 without paying more, so she can fit in her one-credit part-time internship without missing out on a full course load and it is fine. I would resent having a lot of tuition money go toward many credits for an internship (I would probably accept it as a necessity, but resent it).</p>
<p>If you are saying you got a summer internship on your transcript without paying extra tuition, then you are lucky.</p>
<p>There are fields (education, nursing,) where you will be doing an unpaid internship, just to meet the graduation requirements and to get your license. For example: Student teachers, nurses, counselors are paying for the credits and working for no money (whether it is listed as student teaching or internship it is virtually the same thing).</p>
<p>At my school, you pay by the credit hour. So yes I paid over $2000 for the 6 credit hours I had to do for my internship. That was on top of the 5 credit hours I paid for over the course of 5 semesters for additional clinical assignments “AKA Internships.” Schools love forced free labor…</p>
<p>Totally agree LF. An internship is not work-for-free; it’s a training experience. While I’m not overjoyed my son is doing an unpaid internship, in finance – a field where most kids get a paid internship, I am thrilled he got an internship. He is at least learning a ton of skills that he can use forward. I also figure he didn’t get the paid internships his buddies got b/c he didn’t have connections and/or he 's ‘only’ a sophomore. In truth, no one needs to know if it was paid or unpaid.</p>
<p>Tbrat, that really is awful. I don’t suppose there was a job description, was there? Time to think back to how you learned about that position and let them know. My son was also offered several positions in his quest towards finding a decent internship. One in particular looked quite promising, but when they spelled out the actual job, which significantly differed from their original listing, not only did he balk but he also informed the agency where he got the listing. That was false advertising.</p>
We had a lot of control as far as scheduling went, we were responsible for treatments, evaluations, tons of paperwork, and everything in between. Sometimes we had close supervision; other times we were a phone call away from the supervisor. Definitely gave me a BIG step up over my peers…</p>