<p>I’m not stealing someone’s job – no one is unemployed because of me. I worked for a large non-profit with a history of hiring unpaid interns, they cannot and have never paid someone to do the work I was doing. The purpose of their internship program was to give us an experience and to help us get a better idea of what we (as interns) need to do to get where the senior staff is today (as exemplified by frequent lunches by senior staff), not cut their bottom line. </p>
<p>And that won’t occur 5 years from now because I DID multiple, unpaid and stiped-based internships that gave me work experience, connections, and skills in high tech and social media that will give me a leg up in 9 months. I will enter the professional workplace at an entry level position, but that won’t be the case 5 years from now. Quite frankly, if you had the skills to do what I did, you’d have the position – I didn’t know anyone there like some of the other interns, I didn’t get in through connections, I busted my butt off to get their attention and it worked.</p>