business

Internships: To pay or not to pay?

6 Comments
By Patricia Reaney

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Never, ever even think about taking an unpaid job. Regardless of whatever arguments for doing it are there...

2 ( +2 / -0 )

Interns should at least receive minimum wage.

2 ( +2 / -0 )

Unpaid interns ensure that privilege and wealth are handed down to the next generation and ensure that the poor remain excluded from certain professions.

1 ( +1 / -0 )

Unpaid interns ensure that privilege and wealth are handed down to the next generation and ensure that the poor remain excluded from certain professions.

So true - the poor cannot afford unpaid internships.

3 ( +3 / -0 )

Echoing the points made by Strangerland and Ah_so.

People like to say that the unpaid internship eventually pays off in the form of experience and networking.

What they forget is that only certain people can even attempt an unpaid internship: you have to either have enough seed money (provided by parents) that you can afford to rent a short-term residence near the employer, or be close enough to your job to commute there while living at home.

The typical college student, scraping by on minimum wage or a work-study program during the school year and whose parents live in a suburb far from the centers of power, cannot even attempt an unpaid internship. Save money during the year to finance it, you say? Good luck; these days people graduate with debt that starts accruing interest right away.

I can't think of a better way to keep the children of the rich ahead of the children of the ordinary while pretending that everyone still gets an equal opportunity. Down with unpaid internships!

1 ( +1 / -0 )

I've seen posters for internships at Toyota and other large companies around the university. They are unpaid positions, but they do pay your transportation costs to get to the factory. They also give you a free room and meals in the company dormitory, plus Y1000 per day for lunch. That seems reasonable enough to me.

0 ( +1 / -1 )

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