<p>My son has been contacted by an organization that offers internships in Shanghai for a fee that includes housing, business training, a few travel outings and an internship. The internship is for a legitimate company that he actually already interviewed for and did not get the job. The program is expensive and in our minds is the equivalent of a study abroad program with an internship instead of classes. I can't shake the feeling that it's a scam but he's running out of internship opportunities. We lived in Shanghai for five years and he's a decent Mandarin speaker so it has a lot of appeal - but we know it doesnt cost that much to live there and can't imagine paying for an internship....
Does anyone have experience with similar programs?</p>
<p>A coworker’s son did this this past summer though I don’t recall whether or not it was in Shanghai or not. He has relatives in the area so housing was taken care of. I don’t think that he had to pay for the internship but he didn’t receive anything for it either.</p>
<p>I don’t have experience with it but I never would have paid for an internship for my kids. Actually, I don’t really consider it an internship if you have to pay for it. I think your kid is better off with an actual real internship closer to home. If your S wants to do a study abroad then he could consider doing an actual study abroad but if he’s already lived in Shanghai for 5 years it seems he’d benefit more from going somewhere else unless it was when he was a little kid.</p>
<p>Both of my kids had paid internships that paid pretty well (computer science).</p>
<p>It’s bad enough that some companies don’t pay for internships, which is under increasing scrutiny due to companies getting free labor, but I think actually paying for an internship is way over the top and not legitimate IMO. Maybe this is in Shanghai because they couldn’t even legally do this here.</p>
<p>Scam. You put it on your resume. The interviewer asks what you actually did. He then asked what you were paid. And then you say…</p>
<p>Have your S go talk with the career center and see if they can help guide him in getting a legitimate internship.</p>
<p>Shanghai, I don’t think it’s necessarily a scam. It is, as you probably know, very difficult for an unaffiliated person to get a work visa for China, especially for a summer job. If the cost of the internship includes room & board and documentation then it may be worthwhile. </p>
<p>Of course, it’s difficult to judge without knowing the details of the organization, the costs, the hiring company or the job, but if spending a productive summer in China is the objective, then this arrangement may be worth pursuing. Why doesn’t you son ask for recommendations and contact someone who’s already used this program?</p>
<p>This is the third time recently that I have heard of paying for an internship. The most recent one was from a soon to be graduate from U Delaware that studied nutrition. She was waiting to hear back if she was lucky enough to have been chosen to participate in this pay for internship
I hope this is not a growing trend…it’s bad enough to have an unpaid internship that doesn’t lead to a job !</p>
<p>My son had an internship last summer. It was a terrific experience with this financial investment firm and of course it went on his resume. He lived at home, so he didn’t have any expenses, HOWEVER, he had to pay his university to get credits for this experience. The company did not get paid.</p>
<p>What concerns me about your description is that nagging question: who gets paid? I do not like the idea that your son pays an agency to coordinate this internship. I felt last year that it was bad enough that my son did not get paid and it was an insult that we had to pay his school, but it wasn’t like his school was promoting this. But in your case, it sounds suspect and I agree with GladGrad. Just because it’d be nice to get your son off the couch and helpful for him to have an internship, there might be better options than this. This reminds me of that J-9 program last summer where int’l grad students came to the US and ended up working night shifts at Hersey. (At least those kids got paid.)</p>
<p>limabeans, at DD’s school it was a requirement for the major that they did an internship. It was not paid, but it could be done during the semester, was part of her tuition and she got credits for it. </p>
<p>It seems like slave labor to us, but to the companies they have a lot of interns who turn into a lot of work for them, training them and writing reviews for kids who are not going to be there once they learn the job. If they are getting school credits I have less of a problem with it, but I would not want to pay to work for someone just for the experience. If she did it over the summer instead of during the semester, we would have had to pay extra, plus room and board. That was not an option to us.</p>
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<p>I worked for a large international financial services company, and we were not allowed to have students do unpaid internships UNLESS they were getting credit from their schools for the internship. I don’t know the specifics, but HR would not permit it under any circumstance, so I assume it violated some labor law. We had a couple paid internships, and we had students who didn’t get those begging to do unpaid internships for the experience, but couldn’t accommodate them unless they were getting credit. I would imagine that colleges charge for these credits (although if it’s during the semester it would probably be picked up in regular tuition). The students generally got more out of these internships than we did (our regular employees could have done the work done by the interns in much less time than we spent training, assisting and mentoring them), although we did get a preview of a student’s abilities and work ethic, which were invaluable in deciding who to hire permanently.</p>
<p>momrath is right - they should have references from other students who have done this program. They can tell your son immediately if it was ‘worth it’ and what they did while they were interning.</p>
<p>Surely the key point here is that this is an international internship? Momrath is right arranging an internship in China involves visa issues & paper work on top of the usual housing/transport aspects and this may well be worth paying a fee to the intermediary agency. ShanghaiMom has five years experience in China and contacts which most of us dont have. Full disclosure: Im writing this from my brand new home in Xintiandi (Shanghai neighbourhood) and dont have the first clue as to how to go about arranging an internship for my son who is finishing his first year of college in the US in May (Ive only been here two days and am heavily jetlagged still…)</p>
<p>But my son, who will be spending part of his summer here, has expressed an interest in learning a language in a totally different part of the world, gaining exposure through volunteering at an NGO in the country one where we (third generation international expat family) have few contacts. He is talking about applying via an intermediary agency which will take a fee. Its a not-for-profit and weve checked it out but of course having to pay is irksome… However, how would someone get experience in this area? The UN specialized agency where I worked requires graduate degrees from its volunteers/interns. Mini, who I understand has ties to a n NGO in South India, might be able to arrange something but again, not everybody has those contacts. If S wanted to be in Africa, we could probably have set something up. Sods law, he wants to go to another region. I am pretty sure well end up paying a fee to the non-profit agency that expedites this. The same agency has scholarships available for students who cant pay their fees. Sounds fair to me.</p>
<p>How is paying for an internship any different than paying for the bazillion summer “pre-college” programs that are out there?</p>
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<p>JoBenny it probably isn’t much different. It just seems misleading to call it an internship. It is kind of like what goes on with “people to people”. It isn’t that it is a bad experience, it just isn’t some honor that they market it as, it is just another paid pre-college program.</p>
<p>Thanks for all the responses - they echo my concerns. I will have him ask for previous interns contact info for sure. One big concern I have is that there doesn’t seem to be too much history about this company - InternshipDesk - and that they charge much more than other similar companies (thankyou kstliamom for your pm about a similar organization that is signigicantly cheaper). The actual work is legit and that’s what keeps us interested - he’s finishing his junior year in supply chain management and with his Mandarin skills this job sounds ideal. He’s interviewed a lot through his campus career center and nothing has come through yet. At this point he still has to interview directly with the company he’d work for but the internship company wants a $500 deposit before the interview (refundable if he does not get the interview) - that just gives me a bad feeling - I’ve seen way too many Shanghai scams!</p>
<p>Samuck - have fun in Shanghai - it was a great expat experience and we may even go back for a second round. I had one daughter who worked a summer job in Shanghai at SAS for two years but the other 2 never worked there.</p>
<p>I am not happy with the current “internship” situation. </p>
<p>As a business owner I have to actually pay my employees and as a parent I am apparently expected to subsidize my college student children working for <em>for profit</em> companies. Subsidize meaning … train fare, lunch money, and working wardrobe (or room and board in the big city).</p>
<p>The Free Labor Act says that in order for an organization to not pay their employees cash money they must receive something of value in return. That something in this case is college credit – either course credits or graduation requirement checkoff.</p>
<p>My first exposure to paid internship (the student pays) was The Washington Center. Son received information on them every year he was an undergrad - they came on campus to discuss their opportunities. I think that most were unpaid or student-paid. I was amazed that parents paid for these kinds of things (son was CS major so he had paid internships) but I guess that’s a reflection on how many paid internships there are for certain majors.</p>
<p>If I were running a company, I don’t know that I’d really want unpaid internships. How focused would an intern be if they had to worry about funding their living expenses? Would they want to eventually work full-time for a company that was so cheap?</p>
<p>Ahhh…we are in internship purgatory. S2 is required to do an eleven week/375 hour internship in order to receive his diploma. It is a nine hour college credit summer school class that we have to pay for. The internship has to be related to his major,can’t be paid and all 375 hours must be accrued during the eleven week summer school window.
The university,though we are paying for this “class”, offers no aid in finding/securing said internship.<br>
S2 graduates on May 4 (all class work completed) but will not receive his diploma until the internship is completed.
He has applied to as many places close to home that he can come up with. We can’t really afford to pay for apartment,gas,utilities,food,etc. for him to go off and live on his own in another area for the summer working an unpaid internship…remember we have to pay for the summer school 9 hour class!</p>
<p>He had one interview (the only one he’s heard from) this week that would be great for him if he could get it. Everyone send all good thoughts that PackMom’s S2 gets this one,lol.</p>
<p>As this is an overseas opportunity, the expectation to cover room/board/field trips/visa handling seems viable. Many companies will offer internships, with the caveat that the college give credit. It seems that your child falls within this scope should he/you decide to take advantage of it.</p>
<p>to beth’s mom:
Sounds fine, except that the only way the student can those credits is if that student pays for it.</p>
<p>Therefore, here in the US there are three levels:
- a paid internship
- an unpaid internship and
- an unpaid internship pays the college for the credit</p>
<p>Sending over some wishingful thinking PackMom.</p>