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    benjaminalloverDayna Evans
    2/16/14 1:36pm

    It's also worth mentioning that students who have help from their parents are more easily able to take unpaid internships than the rest of us. How does one pay their rent on zero income? They don't, somebody else does.

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      Ceraunographbenjaminallover
      2/16/14 1:47pm

      You're not incorrect, but most people I graduated with (circa '09) that went the unpaid intern route had a service industry job (bartending, starbucks, retail, etc) and would intern 2-3 days per week on top of it. Most of them had some form of safety net from their families, but they also had an income as well.

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      benjaminalloverCeraunograph
      2/16/14 2:00pm

      So how do you afford your student loan interest, rent, food, medication and transportation on minimum wage when you can't work 7 days a week due to your internship? That doesn't seem to add up for me.

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    jgatzbeeDayna Evans
    2/16/14 1:24pm

    I graduated in 2005. It never really occurred to me to look for internships; when I was done with school, I just started applying for jobs. I had some work experience in school that prepared me, and I guess I always assumed people did internships while they were still getting degrees. I know this isn't a new story, yet the notion that you would get your bachelor's degree (or more!) and then hit the market looking for internships is still very strange to me.

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      KaiFromDogtownjgatzbee
      2/16/14 1:30pm

      Agreed. It seems very strange to look for internships after you've received a terminal degree.

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      jgatzbeeKaiFromDogtown
      2/16/14 1:31pm

      I know that part of this issue is the fact that the economy has been bad and jobs are not plentiful, but it still seems weird to continue on from college into an internship, unless you're in one of the industries that absolutely requires that.

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    emmabrocker2Dayna Evans
    2/16/14 1:27pm

    Internships are shitty, and it's mind-blowing that some of the ways that interns are treated ends up being legal. But I have little sympathy for people who work at internships for months on end, with dull work and no paychecks. That's because the vast majority of professions where unpaid internships are the norm are those professions where there are far, far more people trying to get a job in the industry than there are open positions. Media, publishing, film, entertainment—these are all industries where there are thousands of college grads dying to get a foothold.

    Picking an ambition that everyone tells you straight-off-the-bat is incredibly competitive and requires a lot of time spent toiling at the bottom—and then complaining when it's incredibly competitive, requiring a lot of time spent toiling at the bottom, speaks to a pretty entitled assholish mindset. (But, then again, those industries tend to attract quite a few entitled assholes.)

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      ApassionataVonCemmabrocker2
      2/16/14 1:36pm

      Toiling at the bottom is one thing, but all the entry-level jobs have been replaced with internships. I did unpaid internships as a student with a couple national American media outlets, and we were doing the work that production assistants used to do. It saves the companies money, meanwhile only interns from wealthy families can afford to do this year after year.

      Yes, these industries are competitive. (Hundreds of applications for a single position is common) But now it's being designed so that only children of the very wealthy can afford to work in media, which is making media even less representative of America at large.

      Plus work for no pay is immoral. Conde Nast doesn't need volunteers, they need employees.

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      fallopiantestubesemmabrocker2
      2/16/14 2:01pm

      I studied Social Work and Gerontology and internship were mandated for graduation. I was mandated to work as an intern 40 hours total as a Junior (3d year) and 16 hours/ week as a Senior (4th year). Then in Grad school, I was mandated to intern 16 hours/week in my first year and 24 h/week in my second year. I was never guaranteed any pay for this work despite the fact that I was working comparable hours and comparably educated to the paid employees at my internships. I was lucky and I got some pay, some of the time. BUT IT WAS A SCAM.

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    ArdenDayna Evans
    2/16/14 4:45pm

    Interns gain absolutely nothing that could not otherwise be gained with a full-time entry-level job at the same company and that people try and pass them off as something special demonstrates mind blowing ignorance and a willful desire to subvert the very idea of capitalism: that your work is valuable and should be compensated with money.

    Let's break down a few points, shall we?

    1) Valuable Learning Experience.
    Bullshit. That's called "showing up to work and paying attention." Everyone learns while on the job. If you are even half awake at your job, you're learning something. This is not unique to an internship, so stop trying to pass it off like it is.

    2) Valuable Connections.
    Again, that's bullshit. This is called "not being a dick at work and doing your job." If you work well with others, and do your job well, you will make connections. If you aren't burning the office down or spitting in clients' faces, then you're going to leave a good impression on people. This is not unique to the Internship experience.

    3) Strong Resume Points.
    If by strong resume points you actually mean telling others that you are willing to work for free, then sure, I suppose that's something. Posting on your resume that you believe your hard work is undeserving of pay is definitely a strong point. Maybe not a strong positive point, but a point nonetheless. An entry level position will give you the exact same bullet-point though. Day one of your employment you can load up your resume and type in "Employed at XYZ Company. Current date till ???" and then come back and fill out the rest when you quit/get laid off because your company figured out how to outsource your position. Again, this is absolutely nothing unique to Internship culture/experience.

    Internships are slave labor, plain and simple. You could argue that they "chose" to subject themselves to this, but in a society that is increasingly refusing employment to people who don't have two to three internships under their belt, it's not really a "choice" to not take one anymore.

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      A Media DudeArden
      2/16/14 10:57pm

      Actually, I would argue that unpaid internships are the very epitome of capitalism—the perfect exploitation of labor in order to produce profit.

      Unpaid internships definitely subvert the idea that labor has value, but I don't think that is the central idea of capitalism. The central feature of capitalism is that capital, especially property, has value. The point of capitalism is that you can make money because you own a business (or an interest in a business), even though you don't actually produce whatever the business makes.

      If anything, unpaid internships could be the seen as the epitome of capitalism. Labor is completely devalued; the actual work that the interns are doing is deemed worthless; whatever value they produce goes to the business's owners.

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    DangerBadgerDayna Evans
    2/16/14 1:39pm

    The great thing about unpaid internships is that they further fuck poor college graduates while letting pampered trust fund babies dick around before moving on in the company or finding another gig. A lot easier to go for the unpaid internship when you have a $50,000 a year allowance.*

    * I feel this isn't covered enough, but FUCK the fake-ass trust fund baby "I'm SOOOO Brooklyn" hipster assholes here in the city who drive up rents and pretend they're thrifty or artistic living in expensive condos off mommy's and daddy's investments.

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      lostmyburnernameDayna Evans
      2/16/14 1:58pm

      The CEO of a company I used to work for once considered charging our interns for the privilege of interning for us. His logic was that we were training them up and providing them with a valuable skill set (think high-end analysis type stuff) that other employers would find valuable. He effectively saw our internships as a type of professional school for which we should charge tuition. Needless to say we quickly shot him down.

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        cheerful_exgirlfriendlostmyburnername
        2/16/14 2:06pm

        I read that as "needless to say we quickly shot him"

        and I was kind of okay with that.

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        dontcallmemimilostmyburnername
        2/16/14 2:39pm

        That is common practice in some industries where you are mentored by a more experienced professional. Real estate comes to mind, where a junior agent kicks up commission from her first few sales to her mentor. If the company is spending a lot of time and money on molding a young prospect, I can see a repayment from future earnings as being more reasonable.

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      Angry WaspDayna Evans
      2/16/14 1:49pm

      The policy of Europe considers the labour of all mechanics, artificers, and manufacturers, as skilled labour; and that of all country labourers as common labour. It seems to suppose that of the former to be of a more nice and delicate nature than that of the latter. It is so perhaps in some cases; but in the greater part it is quite otherwise, as I shall endeavour to shew by and by.*8 The laws and customs of Europe, therefore, in order to qualify any person for exercising the one species of labour, impose the necessity of an apprenticeship, though with different degrees of rigour in different places. They leave the other free and open to every body. During the continuance of the apprenticeship, the whole labour of the apprentice belongs to his master. In the mean time he must, in many cases, be maintained by his parents or relations, and in almost all cases must be cloathed by them. Some money too is commonly given to the master for teaching him his trade. They who cannot give money, give time, or become bound for more than the usual number of years; a consideration which, though it is not always advantageous to the master, on account of the usual idleness of apprentices, is always disadvantageous to the apprentice. In country labour, on the contrary, the labourer, while he is employed about the easier, learns the more difficult parts of his business, and his own labour maintains him through all the different stages of his employment. It is reasonable, therefore, that in Europe the wages of mechanics, artificers, and manufacturers, should be somewhat higher than those of common labourers.*9 They are so accordingly, and their superior gains make them in most places be considered as a superior rank of people. This superiority, however, is generally very small; the daily or weekly earnings of journeymen in the more common sorts of manufactures, such as those of plain linen and woollen cloth, computed at an average, are, in most places, very little more than the day wages of common labourers. Their employment, indeed, is more steady and uniform, and the superiority of their earnings, taking the whole year together, may be somewhat greater. It seems evidently, however, to be no greater than what is sufficient to compensate the superior expence of their education.

      A dirty communist by the name of Adam Smith.

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        b-rarDayna Evans
        2/16/14 1:49pm

        Has Gawker Media started paying its interns yet?

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          GoBananasb-rar
          2/16/14 2:02pm

          Yes, they have. And they call them "fellowships."

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          _Redshirtb-rar
          2/16/14 3:16pm

          Quite awhile ago, actually.

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        toothpetardDayna Evans
        2/16/14 1:18pm

        If we can get the visa problem fixed we can underpay full time employees instead of interns.

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          Pokemongo just pawn in game of lifetoothpetard
          2/16/14 1:22pm

          But enough about Mark Zuckerberg..

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        RealAmurricanDayna Evans
        2/16/14 6:14pm

        I was very surprised to see, upon joining my company about 6 months ago, that we have a number of interns who are well past college. They essentially take the job as an extended audition, and the ones who fit well in the company are rewarded with entry-level roles after 3-6 months.

        Ultimately, it's been a good route for a lot of my colleagues - who have turned those months of underemployment into very solid jobs. But man, I am very glad that I have not been in the position of having to accept an internship 5 years after graduation...

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