Gopher 101

I sat down to write this column with a head full of timely issues to pick from, but as summer break bears down, only one thing haunts me day in day out. A single idea rattles around in my head, and I wonder if I am alone in feeling the way I do. I wonder if other students put together their resumes, interviewed and tracked down summer sublets, all the while thinking what I do -- that internships are a freaking scam. \nSince the dawn of man, adults have tutored the young in subsistence skills like pottery, weaving, hunting and dressing game and agriculture. In the Middle Ages, craftsmen and artisan's guilds accepted apprentices who would work for a blacksmith or woodworker and learn their trade in exchange for room and board. \nFast forward to the present, where stiff-collared pencil pushers extort free labor from college kids by making it an additional hoop to jump through en route to the working world. \nNearly gone are the days when Americans had any tangible skills. Our service economy relies on people's inability to meet their own basic needs. Internships are often billed as a great opportunity to gain "real life work experience," as if a monkey with a library card couldn't excel in most career fields. In nine years of "real life work experience" I've learned a few things. Among them is the fact there are very few jobs that can't be learned on the fly. \nUnless you have a Ph.D, M.D. or Esq. after your name, chances are you'll end up holding down a job an educated monkey could do. It's nothing personal -- our economy is now set up for educated people to click a few buttons, push some things around on a desk and leave the heavy lifting to Indonesian children and people who thought going to class in high school was a buzzkill. If you have a pulse and can add, subtract, read, write and speak adequately, you can be gainfully employed nearly anywhere in America. But I digress. \nIn the past, many recent college graduates learned the ins and outs of their new careers in the first few months of employment. A light bulb went off in an executive's head and he realized Acme, Inc. could get those awkward first few months for free! Hurrah, huzzah! A cheer went across the land as business owners realized they could get millions of man hours a year for free, just by writing a letter to State Tech U stating, "Bobbie Sue totally, like, learned stuff this summer."\nIf you are lucky enough to beat out the competition for an internship with the investment firm or marketing company of your choice, you'll obtain "real life work experiences" like stuffing envelopes and getting coffee. You'll learn what it's like being low man on the totem pole in the working world months earlier than you would otherwise. That's invaluable! \nInternships are contrivances that benefit a lot of people, least of all the college students vying for them. Students who support themselves while pursuing an education find it difficult to keep up on bills while working full-time for free. For these students, traveling out of state is a near impossibility. Meanwhile, students living on Mom and Dad's dime can easily afford to jump through a few extra hoops that give them a leg up in the job market. \nA wise man once said, "don't hate the player, hate the game." Well, I hate the game, but I find myself playing it. All my fuming doesn't change the rules we play by now, but thanks for letting me vent. Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go get Starbucks for the guys in accounts receivable.