Although mountainous snow banks may have students thinking that the university is trapped in a perpetual winter, soon enough registration for the Fall 2014 semester and talk of summer plans will elicit anxious murmurs of the infamous “I” word throughout campus.
Internship.
In recent news, however, internships have been receiving attention from more than just undergraduates “seeking real world experience.” Cases of unpaid internships have been in the legal spotlight for presumably breaching the U.S. Department of Labor’s six-point test.
Following the June 2012 court ruling that Fox Searchlight should have paid their interns on the set of “Black Swan,” other companies, like mass media publisher Condé Nast, have been blasted by interns for failing to pay them even minimum wage, according to a New York Post article.
However, another issue surrounds the developing intern culture – where postgrads find themselves repeatedly in internship positions, but struggling to enter the realm of full-time jobs, according to a New York Times article.
With student debt loan averaging at about $25,000 at graduation, based on a Forbes article, how can Fairfield students sidestep similar extensive, unrecognized hours of labor while sharpening their skill set and enhancing their resumes?
“The big issue is really equity – should anybody be closed out of doing an internship because they can’t afford it,” said Betsy Bowen, professor and internship coordinator for the English department.
Reflecting on her past working summers and semesters as a waitress, Bowen identified with students facing financial setbacks of spending the summer months working with little to no pay and called unpaid summer internships “absolutely exploitative.”
“Summer internships, which are generally unpaid, is where you may lose income by not having a regular job, like waitressing or a camp counselor. You pass that up,” she said.
But Bowen stressed that those career-unrelated summer jobs, which she referred to as less glamorous, though paid, should not be overlooked. They too offer important, valuable skills including persistence and flexibility.
Fairfield’s curriculum offers a solution to the battle between choosing the unpaid position or the summer counselor job. “I encourage students to take on an unpaid internship as part of the program, their regular five courses,” she said.
According to Bowen, unpaid internships completed for academic credit during the school year have fewer disadvantages than unpaid summer internships; the two most obvious being 120 credit hours towards a student’s degree and summers available for earning money.
“The U.S. Department of Education offers guidelines on what they expect students to spend in and out of class. Internships for credit are designed to be equivalent of class,” Bowen said.
One of the only setbacks students may face with for-credit internships is transportation. To accommodate students unable to commute, whether for logistical or financial reasons, Bowen said there are a number of on-campus internships available.
Associate Director of Career Planning Meredith Tornabene said that if a student cannot fit an internship into their semester schedule or if financial instability plays a major role in a student’s declining an unpaid internship offer, there are steps to help supplement the forgone opportunity.
One solution is to incorporate your field of interest into your summer job: “Is there anything you could be doing that keeps you tied to the field you want to be in?” she rhetorically asked.
Tornabene urged students to “take advantage of whatever resources they have to stay up to date on their field,” offering suggestions including creating a blog about their industry of choice and maintaining connections.
Aside from offering little to no pay and financially burdening students who choose to accept, unpaid internships are simultaneously undergoing national scrutiny for allegedly imposing menial tasks upon interns, rather than truly challenging students to apply their degrees to daily tasks.
“Those internships,” referring to the Condé Nast lawsuit, “where probably menial grunt work – and were actually coming from postgrad students. I think a lot of what they were doing is illegal,” Tara Rupp, the internship coordinator for the Dolan School of Business said.
But Rupp dismissed the stereotype that is seemingly developing. “Not all unpaid internships are about getting coffee,” she said. “In fact, sometimes we have paid interns who just did data entry,” she commented on past reviews of paid internships through the School of Business.
Paid or unpaid, an intern’s experience largely depends on the curiosity, energy and enthusiasm he or she put into it.
“There’s a difference when an intern just asks for their assignment and goes home than if they try to have conversations, asks people to have lunch with them,” Rupp said, and encouraged students to ask questions and be engaged.
Senior Jesús Núñez initially had major communication setbacks with his supervisors at his unpaid internship with the City of Bridgeport.
“I wasn’t getting the information I needed to finish my projects in a timely manner,” Núñez said. “They assumed I was a pro in the government field and never explained the jargon they used.”
Intimidated and frustrated, Núñez persisted and was able to improve the overall experience. Although he is not interested in accepting more unpaid internship positions, he will never forget his weapon for success: “I always asked questions.”
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