The Beginning of the End of the Unpaid Internship

[baked_goldfish]

In August 2011, when Diana Wang began her seventh unpaid internship, this time at Harper’s Bazaar, the legendary high-end fashion magazine, she figured that her previous six internships - at a modeling agency, a PR firm, a jewelry designer, a magazine, an art gallery and a state governor’s office - had prepared her for the demands of New York’s

Comments

[britneyspears]

yeah, unpaid internships are bullshit. i'm too poor to even be able to consider them.

and i thought the 28 y/o was too old to be working unpaid internships...but 40? eaux.

[baked_goldfish]

i'm too poor to even be able to consider them.

One of the biggest problems with them, imo. An already exclusionary labor market excludes even further when you have to pay to play like this.

[britneyspears]

yup, exactly! you put it much better than I did lmao.

[dreamoftheday]

yep, this is pretty much my exact problem with unpaid internships

I attend a public city university where probably 75% of people who go there work at least part time, and lots work full time and take a full course load...I don't have a job at the moment and luckily my parents can pay for the essentials while I'm in school but it's still ridiculously exclusionary to expect people to work for no pay in order to get experience~ that doesn't even guarantee a future paid position or any kind of career advancement or educational gain at all.

[muggy_wump]

The idea of an unpaid internship is really weird to me. I've done work experience before, but I get paid for it. Not paying interns makes it seem like the company is saying "your work is worthless to us", which isn't: even students have something to contribute to a workplace, and should be paid at a beginner's wage.

I also think it's problematic from a class perspective. Obviously, people who need money/aren't being supported by their parents won't be able to work for no pay. They miss out on opportunities which more privileged students are granted easily.

[ecrivais]

Yeah, I totally agree! I am working in a lab at school right now and it could be an unpaid internship but I am totally getting paid and it is amazing. It also forces me to work harder, I think. I mean if I wasn't being paid do you think I would be working my ass off this week to come in for 40 hours while simultaneously studying for exams and doing other shit? Hale no.

[poetic_pixie_13]

Totally agree.

And, OT but your icon is fabulous. The Old Kingdom trilogy is one of my favourites ever.

[chasingtides]

Am I the only person who never did an internship?

As soon as I could work, that money was key to my being able to live. Unpaid work was considered exactly that - unpaid labor - even when I lived with my parents. (Now I work in the financial sector on food stamps and hopefully getting state insurance - no internships here.)

[twowaymirrrors]

No, I never had one because I could never afford to not work and internships in my field weren't paid. They were also mostly in NYC or Boston and with them not paying I couldn't afford to commute to one or get an apartment in the other.

[bex]

They were REQUIRED for my degree. Not sure what one would have to do to get out of it, but internship credits were considered part of my undergrad coursework and it was possible to "fail" the internship by not writing the stupid weekly journal and end-of-semester "reflection paper" talking about all the things I'd learned.

[13chapters]

I had to do an internship for my masters, but the school offered funding if it was unpaid. I actually lucked out there because the fund was a flat $2500 for domestic internships and $5000 for international internships. I did my internship in India and even after paying for plane fair I did pretty fucking well with $5000. My friends who did their internships in DC only got the $2500 and you know they spent way more than I did. (My rent for the entire summer was $200.)

I couldn't have afforded it without funding.

[dolldaggabuzzz]

unpaid internships just make me angry. Especially in this economy ... IDK unpaid internships are just a company's way of not paying for actual work. Its cheaper for them and it fucks over everyone else.

[baked_goldfish]

The most ridiculous thing is when you see "unpaid internships" that you know for a fact ten years ago would have been paying entry-level work, because you knew someone in that exact position. And when they got promoted/moved/left, the job somehow became not-a-job.

[liret]

I have seen unpaid internships that said applicants should have 3 years work experience doing the same thing the internship was in. They've pretty much stopped even pretending to be about education, at this point.

[maenads_dance]

Jesus.

[miischelle]

This makes me so grateful for the internship I had. I wasn't paid for being there, but when they used my work in the publication, they paid me as a freelancer at rates I gave them.
This....just.....wow.