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Maybe I've drank the Kool-Aid a bit, but I did an unpaid internship at an international non-profit and harbour no resentment about it having been unpaid. I got fantastic experience, applied knowledge directly gained in my degree, got written attribution on published reports, and ultimately landed my current (well-remunerated) position as a result of having the name brand on my CV. I also made great connections, my old boss is my first go-to for amazing letters of reference, etc. Honestly the whole episode was one of the richest (except in the literal sense) of my life. The caveat is that I was concurrently receiving a generous scholarship that paid all my living expenses, so I was in a position to be able to take on unpaid work. It is a shame that only those with an alternative source of income, be it scholarships or generous parents, are able to benefit from that particular internship scheme. At my current employer we pay interns £18,000 a year (last I checked). It's not terrific for those who take it on after graduating, but great for those who take a year out in the middle of their degree to get experience. I acknowledge that paid internships are better. But I didn't feel like a "slave" for being an unpaid intern.
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Mar 14, 2014 11:14
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Giant Goats posted:That's exactly the problem. There are people who aren't in a position to work for free - because they have dependants, because they don't have family support, because they are facing other financial/housing/transportation issues - and it decreases social mobility in our society to make working for free the key to better future employment. I agree with this, but at the same time I don't see many practical solutions to it. I suppose you could legislate against unpaid internships, but the result might well be: (1) some organisations offering no internships full stop, as a result reducing the absolute amount of people getting the experience; (2) organisations paying minimum wage (not a huge improvement). Also, how do you legislate against volunteerism? I will unpopularly suggest that the onus is on the applicants themselves not to enter fields that expect entry-level workers to have experience that is often gained for free, if the applicants cannot afford to do this. Planning one's career this way doesn't so much limit social mobility as it encourages people to enter fields with more favourable labour demand/supply dynamics. This thread is evidence that several fields pay interns handsomely (accounting, engineering to name two).
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Mar 14, 2014 18:12
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Yes, let's look to France for examples of how to foster a competitive business environment. I don't see how suggesting young people are taught/appreciate labour economics and supply/demand is "corporate style handwringing".
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Mar 15, 2014 17:21
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I live in a Western European country and did an unpaid internship in another Western European country. USA is not "#1" but romanticising France and "Western Europe" (which I take to include Spain, Portugal, Italy) betrays your ignorance pretty badly. You can decry the fact that not everywhere has made unpaid internships illegal, or you can retrain, take ownership of your future, and enter a field in which your (entry-level, experience-seeking) labour is valued.
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Mar 15, 2014 18:44
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Why are young people cool with saddling themselves with debt for a degree that is barely worth the paper it's printed on yet morally outraged at the idea of incurring debt to get working experience that actually is valued?
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Mar 15, 2014 19:39
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semicolonsrock posted:So this isn't the case with unpaid internships at nonprofits at all, but in terms of the very well paid internships at respected companies, supply/demand of # of people is not why those are so well paid. When a place like McKinsey gets 400 applications for 4 internship spots, its summer wage isn't set by supply/demand, it's set high so it can not only get a good enough intern (which it probably would with an unpaid internship) it's set there for reasons other than number of applicants v number needed. For example: maintaining prestige, getting very first pick of the litter, etc. This is also why hedge funds pay 6k for a 2 week internship etc. Erm, it's still supply and demand - you can't look at number of applicants as the only variable. Quality, experience, skills, etc. At the risk of doing something ridiculous like comparing interns to CEOs, do you think executive comp is not bound by s/d? You could probably find thousands of people willing to do these roles (or at least have a go), but it'd be disingenuous to say that the market is not functioning by not paying some dude $20/hour to run Fortune 500 Inc even though someone would be offering to do it at that price. Edit: and this is relevant to, say, McKinsey who will want the best, most qualified intern. This person will most likely have offers from competitors or different industries and so will likely need to be compensated in a way that reflects that.
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Mar 25, 2014 08:02
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That post would have made a lot of really good points, but for the fact that the rest of the developed world educates its population to degree-level pretty drat affordably.
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Mar 31, 2014 21:01
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Everyone in England can afford to go to Oxford (even after they tripled!! tuition fees) without taking on lifelong, crippling, non-dischargeable debt, yes. Can everyone be admitted? No that'd be absurd. Also how are A-levels in England any more restrictive than the SATs? They make awful teen movies about how goddamn meaningful that test is for Americans' futures.
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Mar 31, 2014 21:53
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EN Bullshit posted:I don't know anything about A-levels, but SATs/ACTs aren't restrictive at all. They typically just determine how prestigious of a school you can get into. If you get a crappy math score on your SAT or ACT but are still above a school's minimum overall score, then you can still major in math, no problem. This is generally the case with A-levels as well. If you pass a requisite amount of them, you'll get into university somewhere (perhaps for as little as £3,000 a year), though yes, only the top students generally are getting into Oxford, Cambridge, LSE, etc. J4Gently posted:It is more flexible Perhaps it's more flexible because it is in the school's interest to admit more people who are willing to pay them six figures to attend? Oxford has finite spaces available and can only charge a maximum of £9,000, so yes, they'll only go for the brightest applicants. Anyway I'll admit that social mobility in the UK sucks, but the US is the second worst in the OECD. If you think paying manifold tuition is worth being slightly better at social mobility as a society, go right ahead. For what it's worth France and Canada (and everywhere else in the OECD that isn't the UK) have greater social mobility than the US and their young people are generally not becoming indentured servants to pay for their education. It's almost as though abusively high tuition fees hurt rather than help social mobility. Funny that.
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Mar 31, 2014 23:10
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J4Gently posted:
The US has the second-worst social mobility in the OECD. If what you're saying is true, by implication Americans are less gifted and hardworking than their developed-country peers. Is that the conclusion you'd like to reach? Edit: to avoid derail, I've only had three (paid) interns work for me, but boy do they work. Two got offered full-time jobs after (one accepted), and I'll be offering the current one a job for sure. It's basically a protracted, year-long interview process where you learn what you can't in a normal interview - if you work well with someone.
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Apr 1, 2014 21:37
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