<p>Medwell, I am a financial aid officer at a large public university. My job requires a high degree of knowledge and accuracy. My degree is a hybrid of management and industrial engineering. I have a management background. I looked for a job for two years before I was able to find one that paid what this one pays. My point is, while some jobs do pay well … MOST jobs do NOT pay as well as new grads think they will or should. Think about it folks, we have “shed” millions of jobs. The new jobs that are being created don’t pay what the old jobs paid, and there are more people competing for fewer jobs.</p>
<p>Geomom, I’m not sure if you were just drawing an analogy… but the type of “internship” that most college & grad students are seeking is more than just on-the-job training. I realize that many companies and agencies don’t provide positions that live up to the promise - but an internship really is not just practice for an entry level position. Ideally interns in a business or office setting are participating by shadowing higher level executives, sitting in on meetings, helping with research tasks, etc. (I don’t know what interns in technical fields do – my kids are more on the public service end of things). </p>
<p>I don’t think that the internship would be valuable unless it provided the type of experience that one could not get on their own. The word to apply to someone learning a skill like carpentry or house painting would be “apprentice”, not “internship” – and the person would be paid, but at a lower rate than the next step up (“journeyman”).</p>
<p>You can’t “apprentice” your way into the type of positions my kids were learning about while interning. For example, my son interned for a congressman in DC. That doesn’t mean that he was studying to be a Congressman, nor was he likely to be hired as a legislative aide by that office – but if he had applied to become a legislative aide after graduating, then of course that internship experience would have been valuable to have. But his internship experience would also be something that would be valuable if he had applied to work for and sort of political advocacy or lobbying firm – because it shows the potential employer that he understands the inner workings of Capitol Hill, plus probably has a few contacts on the Hill. It’s not something amazing that would automatically have landed him a DC job – there are a lot of college grads who have done such internships – but it certainly is something that an employer is going to consider.</p>
<p>The bottom line is that a new college grad still needs to have experience to land a job. Internships are one way that students get exposure to positions of higher level of responsibility than entry level hires – if you spend the summer tagging along with the executive staff to various meetings and preparing research memos, that is a different quality of experience than if you spend the summer doing filing and database entry in an office. One is clerical, the other is largely educational. The executive staff doesn’t really need any college students to keep chairs warm at the meetings they attend – so hiring people to do that “job” doesn’t make any financial sense. But if the college grad wants a job with the title “research assistant” as opposed to a job with the title “file clerk”, then that internship experience is going to be very useful.</p>
<p>True there is alot of “fluffy” stuff in internships but even the fluff is valuable as it gives the kids some perspective in how companies are organized. I heard a fearful statistic on our public radio station a couple days ago… if corporations started hiring at the rate of 100,000 employees per month it would still take years and years and years to put all the people laid off in late 2008-2009 back to work. For people in states where unemployment never got to the percentages that occured in states like Michigan that is a mind boggling statistic.</p>
<p>kelsmom, that sounds like a pretty involved job, and I’m glad that someone is around to do it. I do know, however, that universities (esp. public ones) tend to be in the low side in terms of salaries. I once heard of an open accounting job at my school (large and public) that paid only 32k - scary!</p>
<p>In the business consulting field I’m in, the position of “college intern” has changed. These people always were, and still are, expected to fetch coffee, answer phones, and be file clerks…in exchange for sometimes also being allowed to sit in on client meetings and creative sessions, and to observe (maybe proofread) works in progress. The difference is that today these internships are mostly unpaid. And the kids are lining up around the block for them.</p>
<p>My friend has a 27 year old D who is a Starbucks store manager. The D has an Associates Degree in food and beverage something or the other. My friend was saying her D is tired of Starbucks and interested in finding another job, and I said that I’d be surprised if she could find another job paying what she makes at Starbucks. My friend said, “Well, she only makes about $40K per year”. I think my friend is out of touch with reality. 40K (plus decent benefits) for a 27 year old with a 2 year degree is pretty darn good!</p>
<p>^^^ I agree. (I manage a staff of 25-35 year-olds with 4-year degrees in another discipline).</p>
<p>I agree. If, for example, she decided to start up her own catering biz, she’d probably work twice the hours for half the pay…for quite awhile, assuming she could even make a go of it.</p>
<p>Since the economic turmoil last year, actually the past few years, employment in the US has declined because of the offshoring, outsourcing ideas. I think that these companies outsource some of their operation not because they NEED to, but they WANT to save money.</p>
<p>"Just to be clear: your economic production value in a free-market economy is “what you’re willing to accept and what someone will pay you.” But every person is worth more than that. "</p>
<p>Important and excellent distinction.</p>