
Say Hello to Underachieving  - peter123
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/05/fashion/05summer.html
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anigbrowl
From my own experience, I can say 'don't feel bad, this is character-forming
and will give you insights you can use later'. At the same time, unpaid
internships are a scam.

~~~
bravura
No, you are completely wrong. Taking a paid summer job that is "character-
forming" just to make ends meet instead of pursuing the career you want is
just a diversion. Any time someone says that something builds character, I am
very suspicious.

"Unpaid internships are a scam?" Wrong. You have never heard the wisdom that
you should give the first one away.

Obviously, you've never tried to work in a highly competitive industry in
which it is difficult to judge aptitude. Most of these jobs are filled by
networking and word-of-mouth references.

If you want to work in, say, fashion, it will be nearly impossible to get a
decent gig if you don't first work as an unpaid intern in NYC. (Unless, of
course, daddy is rich and powerful.) So you start at the bottom, doing shitty
menial work for an established person, and working hard, and then you leverage
their professional network and credibility to work your way up the ladder. At
the very least, this system filters out people who can't get shit done.

~~~
anigbrowl
Oh, am I. Yes, economic necessity can be a diversion, and it's important to
ensure you don't get trapped by said diversion. But to think you can't learn
anything from being diverted is foolish. You can, and you can leverage that
experience in a variety of ways so in that sense it is not a terminal
disaster.

Actually, I do work in a highly competitive industry of the kind you describe,
the film business, and networking and word of mouth does matter. And I've done
a lot of free work to get a toehold in it - in that sense, my comments were
far too general and therefore wrong. On the other hand, those were mostly
cooperative ventures where everyone was working for free or nominal payment.

Let me rephrase: unpaid internships at well-established, highly profitable
companies are a scam. If you can afford the risk of having a clueless newbie
around, you can afford to pay them minimum wage. If the work needs doing, then
plainly it has some economic value. So does the learning environment for the
intern, but that doesn't pay the rent while they're working for you.
Landlords, retailers etc. aren't in the business of giving the first one away,
they tend to request money up front.

It's not the shitty menial work I object to, mastering those tasks with a
smile is an essential quality in many industries. It's the willingness to
exploit people when you can afford to pay them without any significant cost to
yourself. Shitty menial work on internships does filter out people who can't
get shit done, have an entitlement attitude etc. Unpaid internships filter out
anyone anyone who doesn't have a financial safety net, regardless of their
skillset, motivation, or potential benefit to your organization. Working a
second job for that period can be impractical, considering that the eager
intern wants to give 110% to show off how great they are.

Is it really too much to ask that in return for such a commitment, someone
should get paid enough to afford food, laundry, transit and a bed to sleep in?

~~~
iuguy
Hmmm... Had a bit of a think about this one. We have some things that we could
do with a hand on but don't have the time to do ourselves nor the budget to
put out elsewhere. This stuff is mainly developing internal tools for our
penetration testing team. If you're a Uni student looking to expand beyond a
straight CS degree or go into pen testing or information security I can think
of worse ways to spend your summer than helping a bunch of guys out with
projects, probably wangling sponsorship for government clearance and getting
to help out on real world pen tests - then of course if you do well there
might be a job when you finish uni, or at least a set of industry references.

I agree that exploitation is wrong, but the key is to find something that pays
you back in ways that will help you, and money isn't always the best way to
get paid.

~~~
motoko
But, at minimum, that university student would need room and board ---plus
income to service debt--- to work with you. Not all people have trivial access
to that even small income ---particularly if their family does not live in the
metropolitan area.

This doesn't mean that unpaid internships shouldn't exist if they otherwise
couldn't exist as paid positions, but it does mean that some empathy and
social awareness to offer even a couple hundred dollars a week, plus lunch,
would help many young people "find something that pays them back in ways that
will help them."

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timwiseman
I completely miss the point of the article. I do not know what was normal
nation-wide, but I went to a State School (Oklahoma State University) and most
of my peers worked through the summer to save up to have a little spending
money for the next year.

Yes, a few, mostly those with well off parents, spent the time traveling or
taking unpaid internships. A few others, mostly those that were both
intelligent and worked exceptionally hard, got paid internships. But most of
my friends and myself went off to the summer work this article speaks so
derisively off.

The other thing this article seems to forget about is that if you have the
time available it seems to talk about then it is a great time to do study and
development on your own. It was a great time to read about the things you
heard about but didn't have time to go in depth during class or to look at
subjects not normally taught in schools, or at a minimium to read about the
subjects that were coming next semester.

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Oompa
So start a company. I (thought I) had an internship lined up for this summer
too, it ended up falling through, so I ended up starting a new company.

~~~
ori_b
So what happens to the company at the end of the summer when you go back to
school? Will you have enough time to run it, or will it sort of die off
slowly?

~~~
Oompa
That part has yet to be seen. Hopefully, I'll have enough time to run my part,
since I'm in it with 2 others.

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grinich
College-aged kids living in a shabby apartment. One's eating noodles and the
other is typing on his laptop.

I bet it even smells like a startup.

~~~
pmorici
Article implies that was their parent's house...

