chickenboi8008

I just recently graduated with a degree in mechanical engineering and I currently have an unpaid internship at a start-up medical device company that I started this past May. I'm really frustrated with it because I'm supposed to be designing medical devices on Solidworks but instead, my boss has me working on this iPhone case project for one of his friends. It has nothing to do with what I applied for. Furthermore, no one really shows up to work and it's really annoying sitting in the office alone. The fact that I'm basically wasting gas driving back and forth (I'm from California and gas prices really suck right now) bothers me too.

The only incentive for keeping this internship is that my boss really likes me and I could get a really good letter of recommendation from him. I've been applying to other jobs where my interests lie in but so far, I haven't had any luck. Should I just keep the internship, even though it's not really related what I want to do in the future and it's not paid?

chrisw

Questions to ask yourself:

1) Have you talked to your boss about this, mentioning that you didn't apply for the work you are doing?
2) Is it taking away from time you can spend applying to real jobs?
3) Is it taking away from part-time jobs you can pick up to get some spending money before you get your real job?
4) Can you work from home?

OminousRun

Unpaid internships for people with college degrees are just a scam on the part of a cheap company.

Cobra392

Like most things in life .... it depends.

Unpaid internships aren't any worse than being forced to take (and pay for) unnecessary classes to get a degree. For instance, most MBAs in Europe and Australia are one year, and most American MBAs are two-year programs. Yet the best in Europe / Australia pay fairly similar to the best in the US. So isn't that extra year by American MBA programs a scam as well?

Do you need income right now? Do you want income?

A future employer will not be mad at you if you say "I left that internship because it was unpaid and I needed income". ... From the experience of myself and fellow late-20-somethings, references aren't too important. If a company really likes you, they don't care what past companies have to say about you.

Stick with this internship if you can financially afford to and if you truly believe that it will be beneficial to your career. Otherwise, I'd probably leave it.

ThisMortalSoil

I agree with Ominous. I find it hard to believe that rich, big companies can't afford to pay you as much as a freakin' fry cook at McDonalds gets paid.