No Pay? Many Interns Say, “No Problem”
Jennifer Halperin is the internship and special projects coordinator at
Columbia College in Chicago, Illinois. She writes a regular column about
internships and networking for Wallet Pop, an online magazine devoted to
consumer finance.
Background on Cooperative Education Programs
While unpaid college internships give students opportunities to explore professions, college co-op (from “cooperative education”) programs provide more formal career training. Co-ops are usually paid positions that provide academic credit toward graduation. In some co-op programs, students may have completed their coursework and focus entirely on their training; in other programs, they may alternate between academic work and full-time employment. The University of Cincinnati began the first cooperative learning project in 1906; it was designed to close the divide between the classroom and the workplace while allowing students to earn money in their chosen fields. Northeastern University in Boston began its own cooperative program for engineers in 1909, and many other institutions followed. Current research suggests that students get enormous benefits from such programs, including increased social skills and self-confidence. Over a thousand U.S. colleges now offer co-op programs.
A recent article in the New York Times about the growth of unpaid internships has spurred an interesting debate among many people one that mirrors conversations that the writer has with students almost daily. And many of these students are juggling classes as well as part- or even full-time jobs and sometimes even a child of their own along with the internship.
After reading the Times piece, the author took an informal survey of several recent and about-to-be graduates, some of whom are still looking for jobs, on whether they thought unpaid internships were worthwhile or fair, or should be illegal. On the contrary, a common theme among their answers was that while paid internships would be better, unpaid internships were beneficial if they offered real-world, practical experience. Her work in one internship led to an offer of part-time paid work with the company while she still was in school. Thomas Pardee, who has done both paid and unpaid internships, says he is becoming suspicious of unpaid opportunities, especially those requiring full-time hours.
“They are really only accessible to people who have the financial support from someone else to survive them,” he says. “It’s not a difficult stretch to assume many companies are unloading the burdens of their smaller paid staffs onto unpaid interns, and not giving them enough in return in terms of guidance or overall perspective in the industry, which is literally supposed to be the entire payoff when you don’t get a paycheck.” But just about everyone else the author asked found that they did, in fact, receive just that kind of payoff or certainly saw the potential.
“Unpaid internships are totally worth the hours you put in and the hard
work,” says Hannah Ferdinand, a production assistant for The Dr. Oz Show
who did five internships while in college. It’s long hours, a lot of
work, and then when you go out for lunch, you think ‘Wait, how am I
paying for this?’ But you can learn skills that you wouldn’t necessarily
learn in a classroom Nick Orichuia, who grew up in Italy and came to the
United States for graduate school, says: “I think unpaid internships are
almost always a valuable experience, especially for students in college.
In my opinion, internships shouldn’t only be seen as opportunities to be
hired in the place where one interns, but part of a larger learning
experience.” To its credit, Atlantic Media is pledging to begin paying all interns,
and it likely will see a more diverse pool of applicants as a
result.