Wk1 Unpaid Internship
This probably should have been under my list of things that were to have been done yesterday. But what was put off yesterday might as well be done today. So the focus of my thesis is now directed at the undergraduate unpaid intern (that’s about as focused as I can get). In my old University this might have been called Work Integrated Learning. But here in America I think most people know what an unpaid intern is. And forget the summer interships. I’m talking about the person that takes a full semester to go and work in their field with no pay, yet still paying tuition so they get credit for the chance to work in their field for free.
Paying a school to give you an opportunity to work full-time for free. Well you better damn well be sure the work you’ll be doing is worth the price of admission. And I should think the school aught to assist in the process. Can you not be in a college program and get an internship at a company? Maybe. But often they require you be enrolled somewhere getting credit for the internship.
As I contemplate this I must admit I’m a little bitter from my own experience. As a junior in college I took the winter semester to do an internship in Grand Rapids, Michigan for the A/V Department of Amway Corporation. I paid the school for the 6-credit internship during which I worked 40-hours a week and sometimes more for 6-months. I was one of the lucky few in the world as I was paid $12.50 an hour. Not a bad wage for 1996 in the mid-west.
However, moving to a new city alone in the middle of winter with no social network was a challenge. The only direction I had for the internship was a weekly review by my superiors at work and the 10-page paper I had to write when it was all over. Often I found myself confused on the job, trying to figure out what it was I was to be doing or learning. Looking back at the experience 14 years later I can see the mistakes I made and what I could have done to make the most out of what actually was a great opportunity that I squandered.
I do think new media technology offers great opportunities in helping to make the most of internships. The focus of using iPhones and Facebook may be unnecessary, but I’m trying to find the easiest tools for the job. I think the media project proposal on this will have to be a presentation of utilizing tools. Either from the perspective of a student, or the perspective of the lecturer who guides the students during their internship. Okay, maybe both. Time to write the proposal.








