I attended an Internship seminar in the Starr career center. Michael Kalish did an amazing job at breaking down the definition and process of internship. He explained how internships, or pre professional work experience, can be paid, unpaid, or credited. Paid internships are more common in business world, but that business has to pay at least min wage which is 11 dollars right now but by December 31, 2018 minimum wage goes up to 15 dollars per hour. Many businesses have exploited interns and there are many cases of lawsuits on big businesses who have exploited unpaid interns.
A lot of the PowerPoint was geared towards juniors and senior or those that are already in one of the Baruch schools. However, he talked about a zero credit internship course, which is a pass fail course that mocks a real credited internship for a student who is not in one of the three Baruch schools. This is one thing that I definitely want to learn more about because it would give me the ability to explore my desired working field before really being in that field.
Talking more with people from the career center really made me want to focus more on making a plan for my future. Even though I’m a freshman, I do have really big plans for myself but i just have no way to organize or plan for them. I would not even know where to start. However, the career center really helped me organize myself and this made me want to meet with them more. I feel like the earlier i get started the less anxious I am going to feel later on as a junior or senior getting ready for grad school.