I have an unpaid internship at a large, well-known hospital in Boston. I am not getting any college credit for it, and I work probably around 25 hours a week- give or take.
From what I know about unpaid internships, this is not legal. It is not a learning environment. I do all of my boss’s work that she does not have time to do… I fill out spread sheets that she needs and I wrote an article for her (that she was supposed to write). This internship is not really in the field of what I want to do, and it definitely isn’t what I expected it to be. I want to go into healthcare, but she is in the healthcare administration aspect. I took the internship because I thought it would be good experience and felt like it would look good on my resume, but whether it looks good on my resume or not, I do not feel like this is benefiting me. She does not treat me very well and has little respect for me despite the fact that I am working for her- for free.
Today she needed me to record patients’ health insurance plans. This included me going into their personal health records, where I had access to every diagnosis, medication, doctor’s note, etc. I was very concerned about this, told her I was unsure if this was legal (I’m not an ACTUAL employee of the hospital), and had not signed any sort of HIPAA form or anything. She told me it was fine.
I’ve been doing this for a month. Most people that I talk to insist that I should quit and find an actual job. I don’t want to think I’ve wasted a month of my summer working for free, and then quit, unable to even put it on my resume.
I’m not sure what to do and which is the better option. Please let me know what you think!!
Chalk it up as experience, and find something worth your time. It’s not a waste - you learned something, right? At the very least, that this particular area isn’t something you want to consider.
I was in almost your exact situation only I worked 40 hours/week. If you think that your boss will give you anything but a stellar recommendation, then quit and never look back. You don’t want to suffer for another month and have that woman poison the well (that’s the major reason I quit; I did good work, she recognized I did good work, but I was afraid she wouldn’t give a glowing reference).
Your boss doesn’t know how to manage people. If anything, you’ve now learned–as I learned–that people are your most important asset. When you one day find yourself in any type of managerial position, you’ll remember this boss–and you’ll remember to treat everyone under you appropriately, because you don’t want your subordinates to feel how you feel now. That is a valuable lesson.
This is all especially true when you’re working for free.
I signed up for summer classes at my university to fill out the rest of the summer, so that way I don’t have a gap in my resume. Quitting was the best decision I’ve ever made–and it took guts.
Listen, you don’t have to take this. You’re free labor to them. They should be treating you like a mentee, not like a grunt. When you’re in your first, entry-level job, they can mistreat you. You’re being paid. Here? You’re a gold mine. You’re helping them out with their workload for absolutely nothing. Quit and never look back.
Get started on finding a good internship for next summer this September or October so you don’t have to repeat this mistake.
When you accept the internship, did you and your boss have any understanding of what type of work you would be doing? Did she hold up her end?
Have you tried talking to her to see if you can savage the situation? If not, she might think you are satisfied with the current situation. I suspect that all internships will have grunt work but they should also give you exposure to different aspects of a potential career and the opportunity to learn something. It sounds like yours is failing the second part. If she is at all reasonable talk to her. Suggest areas that you want to learn more about or that you could make a contribution. At the end, it could mean a change for the better or you both might agree that the internship was a poor match and that it is better to part ways.