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I think people fail to realize there is a true difference from actual internships and companies calling summer temps interns.

In high school, kids may LEAVE SCHOOL during the school day to do an internship. Often the company takes a loss by dedicating resources to this which they get to write off as donations to a point. The students get high school tech credit and other things. It is part of their education and they may not be paid for it.

In college, the only real comparison is student teaching. Student teaching is for credit as well. Student teachers do not and cannot be paid. They cannot substitute for money either while student teaching. They get college credit. In some cases, the school or the student must PAY to student teach as the unions mostly have negotiated that any teacher who takes on a student teacher gets a stipend. So you either student teach with a county which has an agreement with your school or if you wish to student teach elsewhere, there is a fee you must pay.

Real internships with college credit often take the form of student teaching where the credits you earn is your payment and often you have to pay for the time wasted 'interning' you.

Summer work experience jobs are *NOT* internships unless part of an actual program and monitored as such for educational content. If you are getting credit in an education institution, you should not be getting paid for that and hopefully, your educational institution would fail your internship if all you did was get coffee for people like a summer employee. Most high school and college internship programs cannot be paid and still get credit.

My view on internships is that they should be paid at least minimum wage. At the very-very least apprenticeship minimum, which is much lower.

Whether they're doing work directly for the benefit of company or not the fact is that they're essentially working a full time job.

They're dedicating hours of their time to the company and deserve to be compensated for it, after all, they need to be able to support themselves.

 kronk wrote:
We pay our summer interns well. Decent interview process for us, practical experience for them. Free? Draw a vacuum on Kronk's ______.

I'm guessing your interns are engineering or science students?

The unpaid internships tend to be clustered in more liberal arts fields, such as journalism, writing, etc.

There's nothing wrong with an internship that includes credit. I did a Legal Clinic in law school, where I did legal work for a non-profit. I wasn't paid, but I got credit and bona fide experience with things like interviewing a client, drafting motions and responses, and incredibly fact specific legal research.

On the flip side, I've seen solo practitioners advertise "jobs" that were unpaid, simply to see if anybody would work for free. That's simply not legal, but whatever.

nkelsch wrote:

Summer work experience jobs are *NOT* internships unless part of an actual program and monitored as such for educational content. If you are getting credit in an education institution, you should not be getting paid for that and hopefully, your educational institution would fail your internship if all you did was get coffee for people like a summer employee. Most high school and college internship programs cannot be paid and still get credit.

At my school you can get credit for any internship that goes through a legitimate company. And I have yet to encounter an internship for my program that was not a paid one.

 Polonius wrote:

 kronk wrote:
We pay our summer interns well. Decent interview process for us, practical experience for them. Free? Draw a vacuum on Kronk's ______.

I'm guessing your interns are engineering or science students?

The unpaid internships tend to be clustered in more liberal arts fields, such as journalism, writing, etc.

There's nothing wrong with an internship that includes credit. I did a Legal Clinic in law school, where I did legal work for a non-profit. I wasn't paid, but I got credit and bona fide experience with things like interviewing a client, drafting motions and responses, and incredibly fact specific legal research.

On the flip side, I've seen solo practitioners advertise "jobs" that were unpaid, simply to see if anybody would work for free. That's simply not legal, but whatever.

This...STEM internships pay very well. One STEM intern program for the Air Force pays 12k for around 2 months of real work. Not bad.

The only internship I have ever done was a meals on wheels dining hall where I served food to senior citizens. Fairly useless for experience

I've only ever had two internships, both unpaid. One was a research internship for a local museum that helped them put on a Civil War exhibit (that I was sadly out of the country for and missed it).

The second was with a Congressman. Basically I answered phone calls and did case intakes, with a little filing on the side (they gave me that because I worked in the library archives of the college I went to). It sucked, because the job mostly consisted of being yelled at by ignorant old people who insisted they be allowed to speak directly to the Congressman - nevermind that he was in DC most of the time, and in meetings with local groups when he was in his home district. It was only 12 hours a week in addition to the 25 hour part time job I was working, so at least I wasn't being run ragged like some interns do.

However, that internship did help me land a full time position that's going to let me get through grad school without any debt.

 Polonius wrote:

 kronk wrote:
We pay our summer interns well. Decent interview process for us, practical experience for them. Free? Draw a vacuum on Kronk's ______.

I'm guessing your interns are engineering or science students?

Right. Engineering students. Usually Chemical or Mechanical.

I don't get why the liberal arts ones (counseling, teacher's assistants, ect) are unpaid as they are providing a skilled service, even if they are getting college/license credit, but whatever.

 kronk wrote:

 Polonius wrote:

 kronk wrote:
We pay our summer interns well. Decent interview process for us, practical experience for them. Free? Draw a vacuum on Kronk's ______.

I'm guessing your interns are engineering or science students?

Right. Engineering students. Usually Chemical or Mechanical.

I don't get why the liberal arts ones (counseling, teacher's assistants, ect) are unpaid as they are providing a skilled service, even if they are getting college/license credit, but whatever.

Usually because for every entry position in journalism/political offices/museums etc, there's a hundred liberal arts graduates people who want it. The result is that for every internship that offers experience as a step to getting those jobs, there's twenty people willing to do it for free for a period of time.

STEM subjects don't have such a recent overflow of graduates with no obvious skill beyond their ability to think, a lack of practical experience, and a degree that probably had nothing directly to do with what they're going to do for a living.

 Ketara wrote:

Usually because for every entry position in journalism/political offices/museums etc, there's a hundred liberal arts graduates people who want it. The result is that for every internship that offers experience as a step to getting those jobs, there's twenty people willing to do it for free for a period of time.

STEM subjects don't have such a recent overflow of graduates with no obvious skill beyond their ability to think, a lack of practical experience, and a degree that probably had nothing directly to do with what they're going to do for a living.

Yeah, it's partially supply and demand.

There's growing evidence that students from more affluent backgrounds trend towards liberal arts, while those less so trend more toward STEM and other career based fields. Which means it's the oldest reason in the book. Why only offer unpaid internships? Because we can!

I see.

Yay, Engineering!

 kronk wrote:
I see.

Yay, Engineering!

Lol. Yeah, it turns out that going to school to learn skills that only a handful of even college educated people possess, and that are useful in profitable industries, makes you valuable even as a short term resources.

Whereas for all the good liberal arts does (and it does a lot), what's the economic value to plug a person like that into a firm?