Internship insanity

If you have any intention of being remotely employable after you toss your cap and take some nice photographs in front of the Sample Gates, chances are that you have sought, are seeking or will seek an internship during your time at IU.

In 2006, 83 percent of graduating seniors had participated in an internship, and that was before the recession hit and firms started to recognize an eager market of potential workers who did not need to be paid.

Because of the economic downturn, jobs were cut left and right. But as any intern knows, there are still photocopies to be made, inter-office memos to be delivered and phones to be answered. However, the U.S. Department of Labor sets standards that must be met in order for an intern at a for-profit company to go unpaid.

Non-profit organizations are not subject to the same requirements because interns can be legally designated as volunteers. Among the most unrealistic of the current standards: the employer cannot benefit from the presence of the intern.

While I don’t dream of wiping the door knobs in order to prevent swine flu, the task assigned to a college intern interviewed by the New York Times, I do hope that even as an undergraduate I will have the chance to make a real contribution.

Even the best reform of the laws governing unpaid internships would fail to address the most disturbing reality underlying their growing prevalence. A certain amount of financial security is necessary before a student can consider taking an internship instead of a job. Even paid internships often don’t offer the compensation many students need in order to make ridiculous tuition payments or buy extremely high-priced textbooks.

In a world in which 76 percent of firms reported in a survey that relevant internship experience was the primary factor in decisions to hire college graduates, it’s time to devise policies that will uphold basic principles of fairness while still allowing employer and intern to garner mutual benefit.

College interns should not be seen as low-skilled labor. Most of us would only bother to pursue an internship in an area we know something about.

Some good government effort on further job creation and economic stimulus could incorporate requirements that would give the doorknob-wiping jobs back to currently unemployed janitors and at least some of the phone-answering and envelope-addressing back to the currently unemployed administrative assistants. Then interns can do what they were always meant to do: learn.

Internships are a valuable introduction to a field of potential employment, to the work environment and to professional mentors. Educational institutions should work to make the experience available to all undergraduates — not just those whose families will happily forego a summer’s earnings.

Internships need a little reform by the federal government, perhaps including measures that could be introduced as economic stimulus or job creation, as well as continued effort on the part of colleges and universities to increase access to financially feasible experiences.

I’ll be in Washington this fall. Maybe the Department of Labor would be interested in my unpaid contribution.


E-mail: swilensk@indiana.edu