Welcome! When we talk to families and counselors, we always emphasize the need for students to realize the progression into the career/job opportunities that they are looking for.
The basics of getting into a career is:
Education
Experience
Entering the Field
The struggle for many is to get the experience to make themselves competitive for the roles they want.
Internships help you get there by providing some work experience that helps separate you from other applicants. And while everyone wants the paid internships, sometimes you get offers that are unpaid.
These opportunities are subject to a lot of debate, but those debates get in the way of the goal: Get the opportunity.
Why Are Unpaid Internships Problematic?
To put it simply, unpaid internships aren’t great because the person working doesn’t receive any money. They get paid in experience.
The arguments against unpaid internships are usually centered around one of the following arguments:
Unpaid internships inherently favor students who come from wealthier backgrounds because they can afford to live and work in a location without any pay
Unpaid internships take advantage of labor and incentivize people to compete against each other for the least benefit
Unpaid internships don’t provide “real” experience
We won’t make comments on the first category, but we will state that the world is not fair. And ultimately, you have to do what it takes to make it. Remember, hope is not a strategy.
Instead, we will focus on the other two buckets.
You have to focus on the goal
Remember, the point of an internship is to help you get valuable experience that helps you reach your goals.
When someone says that you shouldn’t take the job working for free because it is exploitative, ask yourself this:
Is working for free in this endeavor going to help you get closer to your goal?
If the answer is yes, you work the job. If the answer is no, you reconsider.
That simple.
Saying no to work because you won’t get paid immediately is short-sighted. If you say no because you think you will be exploited, you are choosing to take a social stance over your own development.
That is your choice, but we are not focused on the way things should be. We are focused on the way things are.
An opportunity to work at the DA’s office will likely not pay you as an internship. But getting a job as a District Attorney is a lot easier if you have previous experience.
Saying no to that opportunity is saying no to your future.
Internships Should Provide Experience
Every internship should provide experience. Experience though, needs to be defined. It should satisfy at least one of the following:
Directly provides on the job training for the career you want
Provides with you connections or access to the environment you want to work in
Meets a requirement for grad school (e.g., direct patient hours for PA school)
Provides a hard skill that will be useful in another area (e.g., sales)
If it does not meet any of the above, ask yourself why you’re doing it.
Why You Should Take the Unpaid Internship
First and foremost, if you can be paid for an internship, go get paid. No one should work for free on virtue alone.
Secondly, for unpaid internships, there are often grants and funding available for public interest and non-profit work. Try to find these if you can.
But no matter what, you should take the internship to get experience.
There’s no reason not to.
Focus on your goals and remember your why when it comes to internships. And remember, an unpaid experience today can yield a paid opportunity later.