College Grads Fight For Unpaid Internships With Full-Time Work Hard To Find

The New York Times:

Confronting the worst job market in decades, many college graduates who expected to land paid jobs are turning to unpaid internships to try to get a foot in an employer's door.

Read the whole story at The New York Times

Comments

[kowens512]

08:44 AM on 05/07/2012

Bless America...

[chiGrkBoy]

08:09 AM on 05/07/2012

And the rest of us haven't seen a raise or promotion in years while we constantly see email memos of new executive promotion and hires.

[TheSheeple]

06:04 AM on 05/07/2012

It's been that way for three years. When BO was running, rephrase; before he was elected as he never stops running for office, he told college graduates to go to the Peace Corp or Ameri Corp. Told them to "serve" in some non-profit. Look where that got 'em, on food stamps and long-term unemployment that is being cut-off in CA. He knew what his "administration" was going to do to this country but didn't want then unemployment rate to reflect it from the get-go.

[gooftroop]

10:25 PM on 05/06/2012

No fan of the big money/big power boys but this is a tempest in a teapot.

[gaubladt]

09:14 PM on 05/06/2012

Meanwhile, businesses that take interns are also giving huge raises and bonuses to their CEOs and Boards of Directors,

[gooftroop]

10:19 PM on 05/06/2012

And if the big money/big power boys get their way almost everybody will be working for coolie wages.

[Mark James Luzzi]

08:24 PM on 05/06/2012

Free labor for BIG BUSINESS

[MaxHeadroom]

06:21 PM on 05/06/2012

The greedy business world got it's highly sought after wish: A free college educated labor force. After those kids get done with their internships, out they go and in with another group of desperate, starry eyed idealistic ones.

Meanwhile the question that nobody cares to address: Just who is going to create demand for goods if nobody doesn't have any money to spend from the fruit of their labor?

Anybody with any answers?

[pinetrale]

06:11 PM on 05/06/2012

I was so lucky in college to have gotten what was really a paid job that both paid and gave a great internship and also taught me how to responsibly complete a big big project with others involved. The time demands were very real world and I learned a lot by working shoulder to shoulder with experienced faculty, some pretty widely known in their fields. I will never forget in the first days I found myself holding hot used tea bags in the palm of my hand but it got a lot better from there as the responsibilies increased geometrically..

[mbi11]

06:10 PM on 05/06/2012

These internships are unfair to students in many cases and do not generate jobs. It just is a source of free labor skirting the minimum wage laws. The jobs that these students are doing replaces low level workers and consists of menial tasks, not training. It is a good way for businesses and colleges to form partnerships at a the cost of students who could be better served.

[VPerry24]

05:55 PM on 05/06/2012

Being reduced to a lifelong intern! The new era is here. Economy hit a roadblock is expected to sink more. So much for the fake unemployment numbers by this administration.

[Artamentous]

04:57 PM on 05/06/2012

It's a good thing when the young are put into these positions. It's not like the young are the ones who have all the energy to actually organize and get active, so this kind of stuff should go over well with us...

HAHAHA We are heading for some serious trouble.

[[e-mail]]

04:24 PM on 05/06/2012

INTERNSHIPS: GATEWAY TO THE FUTURE ... ! Start you're "career" as you will end it ... working for nothing ... !!!

[Helena Williamstom]

02:50 PM on 05/06/2012

I agree with each intern. I too had an internship at four different clinical settings. Each internship worked me like a dog. At one particular site, my mentor would often leave , walk her dog, pick up her dry-cleaning , etc, while leaving me to do her entire caseload. However, she was always back in time to make sure I did not leave before 4 p.m.

She criticized everything I did to the point, where co-workers observing the abuse, would pitch in to help and offer me their support. My "shift" was until 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. After my mentor would return from her countless personal errand, she would decide at 4 p.m. she wanted to go over some important tidbits I should be aware of.

Only after I complete this internship, I was informed she had failed the four previous interns.

My second internship consisted of working with mentally ill patients from all walks of live. My shift, "7 a.m. until 7 p.m. three days a week and 9 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. on Sundays. Not only did my peer and I carry a full workload, we often had assignments that were due the next day, e.g. soap notes, diagnosis papers, PowerPoint assignments, oral presentations, etc. It was the hardest internship of my life.

There is overwhelming amount of internships sponsors who take advantage of their interns and consider them slave labor.

[Calebsgm]

02:02 PM on 05/06/2012

I have worked in the newspaper industry for many years -- fairly low-level -- and in the past, the papers I worked for at least paid the interns the minimum wage or some kind of stipend. I've seen good interns go on to become full-time employees. Now we do not pay the interns, and there are few chances for them to actually gain the experience necessary to obtain full-time employees. I cringe every time my boss tells me to get one of the interns to do something that does not directly apply to what they are studying -- making phone calls, typing lists, that kind of thing. The problem is our full-time workforce has shrunk significantly, and sometimes we are so overworked that we need the interns to do the menial work. But it isn't fair to them -- after all they are paying for the college credit, and not really getting their money's worth.

[pinetrale]

06:19 PM on 05/06/2012

The colleges shouldn't charge them tuition, or at most a small registration paperwork fee. I was so lucky when I went to school as the tuition was so cheap, so were living costs if you lived simply. You still had to be motivated, sellable, and willing to do grunt work but then you got rewarded.

[serialbandee]

01:50 PM on 05/06/2012

Interns to Be: You voted for this Hope & Change, how is it working for you?

[Helena Williamstom]

02:53 PM on 05/06/2012

This has absolutely nothing to do with POTUS Obama. I swear republicans will blame POTUS if the current runs downstream and they believe it should run upstream.

This is why you will lose...again.

[vonbek]

03:01 PM on 05/06/2012

That didn't require much thought did it? The current economic situation we are in was caused by economic policies going back decades. Considering the state of the economy at the end of the last administration's term, I feel the current administration has done O.K.. The fact that the Grand Ole Party would like to continue and expand upon the economic policies that have caused the mess makes me hope that there is no change in the White House come November.

[Artamentous]

04:59 PM on 05/06/2012

http://rdwolff.com/content/manifesto There is your evolution my friend.