Daniel Fabiani: Thoughts on Internships
dfabiani on Jun 11th 2010
As a current interning staff writer at QUEENS LEDGER, I must say that I am a complete believer in some kind of compensation for your hard earned work. Students already have little money as school takes up their time to work, and when internships cost them to come and go to them, as well as report for them, the least they could do is offer a $1oo stipend at the end of the month or every two weeks, whatever it is. They should at least cover MTA/GAS costs and any other cost it takes for us interns to write stories for THEM which sells THEIR papers.
Yes I know, we are gaining once in a lifetime experience by working hands on and whatnot. But still, they would not be there themselves if it did not provide a paycheck right? It’s a matter of ethics…getting paid to work/gain experience? I say yes, but these cheap companies say no.
And then there is the problem that interns can only offer a certain amount of time, which leads the company to believe is to little (10-12 hrs a week) and they frown upon that because unfortunately a lot of companies expect us to be there full-time and best of all unpaid. Where do we draw the line as interning students? Things like that leads to abuse. I would never work more than 15 hrs a week at an unpaid internship. Not only do I have to work in general, but I take classes and I have a LIFE outside of school work and interning.
There are many cases of abuse and I am an advocate against it and I hope that none of the interning students here are working more than 15 hrs a week unpaid. That would just be lunacy and a classic case of abuse.
**NOTE:
Don’t be afraid to tell your interning boss, if it gets to this point, that the work load is beyond the description provided when signing on. They know when they load you up with all the crap that they don’t want to do themselves, and most of the times that stuff are things that a PAID staff member should be completing, not an unpaid intern. **BE CAREFUL**
Filed in Uncategorized | 4 responses so far
4 Responses to “Daniel Fabiani: Thoughts on Internships”
Agreed, some sort of stipend should be given to students. At least transportation costs. That just shows you how cheap companies have gotten. They are literally trying to cut costs everywhere. All these companies are looking for as much free work possible, and they feel they have the upper hand because they assume that interns will do anything it takes to make their mark at an internship. So they do frown upon it when you limit work schedule and not do the hours or workload of an actual employee. Hopefully things turn around and they can see out point of view.
I definitely do agree with you that any costs incurred on the job should not be paid for by the intern. Also, I think the work given to an intern should be primarily for the intern’s benefit, to give them real-life experience, training. Both the intern and the employer have to remember that this is an internship, not an actual position, so both the assignments given and the stipend paid should be appropriate for a student.
What nobody has mentioned yet is that we all have to pay Baruch College just to be in this internship course. What was the semester fee? 700 dollars? I feel like at least some of this fee should be covered by the companies we’re working for. Instead, most of us are spending money on transportation, semester fees, AND we give our free labor, often for tasks that are outside of the field of journalism (fetching coffee, cleaning closets, etc).
“# Dave Feldmanon 19 Jun 2010 at 1:45 pm
What nobody has mentioned yet is that we all have to pay Baruch College just to be in this internship course. What was the semester fee? 700 dollars? I feel like at least some of this fee should be covered by the companies we’re working for. Instead, most of us are spending money on transportation, semester fees, AND we give our free labor, often for tasks that are outside of the field of journalism (fetching coffee, cleaning closets, etc).”
— The fee is actually $780, as it is a 4-credit course. It would be nice if the company paid it. They really should. Some people work for smaller companies, but I feel that the large corporations can afford to pay this for us, as well as give stipends.
My company pays for my metrocard weekly, but I’ve been there since June and wasn’t even told this until last week.