Internships become absolutely necessary as college students begin the integration process into the work force. However, finding a paid internship is potentially even harder than getting the job of your dreams right out of school. Most internships, especially the ones that look best on a resume, are unpaid with the idea that you are being rewarded in experience. Though that’s true, attempting to keep grades up, hold a job, and go to an internship stretches a person very thin.
Many of my friends with unpaid internships work and make money almost solely for the gas needed to drive back and forth from their internship. That on top of college fees, and other possible added necessities (food, rent, etc.…) some students have to make the difficult decision between the job and internship because it’s impossible to do both. Student teaching is very similar in that same aspect, because the work experience is necessary for acquiring a job later on, but the time and work that goes with it is difficult to manage into a busy college student’s schedule.
I’m lucky enough to actually have a paid internship, and am completely grateful for the income along with the experience, but most are not nearly as lucky as myself. My boss says she believes that interns do a lot of work and deserve to be compensated for it. She sees unpaid interns as free labor and knowing that they’re in college, paying extreme amounts of money already, only makes her more encouraged to pay her interns.
To fully understand the feelings of an unpaid intern more, I asked a friend of mine how he felt about his unpaid internship. He told me he was appreciative of the internship that he had, because it was with a respectable organization and he understood that internships at places like that normally are unpaid because of the amount of students who are willing to work for free just to have a good reference on a resume. However, it was unfavorable the amount of work, time and money that had to go into just being in the internship.
We, college students, already have a lot on our plates at almost all times. The addition of another job is sometimes impossible for us on top of everything else we have to do. It is unfair to many who don’t have the means to afford all the responsibilities that come along with an internship, while others can depend on parents to help with bills or other fees. It’s no one’s fault for the opportunities they have or don’t have, but when a person has earned the position of an internship and cannot accept because they can’t even afford transportation to the internship, it puts more pressure on the individual to figure a way to do everything.
I do believe that companies and organizations should pay their interns, simply based on the fact that internships cost money just to attend most times. Giving up a paying job so that a person can work as an intern is a very demanding request when most college students have to pinch pennies just to pay for necessary bills, materials, and academics. Despite my opinions, I don’t expect things to change in the near future. Companies know students will flock to fill their internship positions and if the person they hire has problems fulfilling their responsibilities, there is someone waiting for the opportunity to fill that spot.
