<p>Many internships come with stipends, but not all.</p>
<p>Grants are available for some.</p>
<p>But what if the costs exceed the available grant moneys and stipend? How much would you be willing to cover?</p>
<p>I guess I am still from the “get a summer job so you can cover your books and other expenses next year” school of thought, and the idea of actually paying several thousand (yes, I’m not exaggerating – it’s overseas in a VERY expensive city and the housing costs are unreal) for my child to take an internship just galls me!</p>
<p>I would love to hear others’ thoughts on this!</p>
<p>I wouldn’t let my kids do unpaid internships. There are just too many wonderful paid opportunities out there. It’s just not necessary. The kids who are expected to toil away for nothing, and in fact shell out living expenses, are being exploited.</p>
<p>"I guess I am still from the “get a summer job so you can cover your books and other expenses next year” school of thought, "</p>
<p>I agree with you. Also, a summer job – any summer job including fast food, store clerk, summer camp counselor – would impress future employers. THe reason that so many employers want to hire students who’ve done “internships” is that otherwise, many students would have no work experience when they attempted to enter the job market after college graduation.</p>
<p>I read that 90% of internships are unpaid. I have very mixed feeling about that. My company always paid the students well, but it was a science based company. It may be that the internships of nonprofits are unpaid for a reason. My daughter was offerred an unpaid internship this summer and will be allowed to work it around her summer job. That being said, the internships she has landed got her some “attention” in the form of paid jobs.</p>
<p>While I wouldn’t consider an unpaid internship exploitation - after all, the student is getting valuable experience for their trouble, experience that they might not get elsewhere - I wouldn’t do one, and several companies I’ve talked to don’t offer them, as a matter of policy. From their point of view, having unpaid interns risks shoddy work or breaches of policy because there is no accountability.</p>
<p>For a high school student, I think an unpaid internship is fine if it allows the student to explore a field they might be interested in getting into.</p>
<p>For a college student, it really depends. Again, I think it’s OK to have a net cost if it provides valuable experience. No reason to do one that’s “overseas in a very expensive city” unless it is directly relevant (majoring in foreign language, international relations, etc.)–sounds more like a vacation than an internship.</p>
<p>S (in college) has worked at paying internships the past two summers, but I have mixed feelings about this–good experience and chance to try a job in the working world, but he also could use a rest from the tough academic grind during the school year. Hope he doesn’t feel like he has to do it (we have never told him that). Plenty of time for work after graduation.</p>
<p>Son has no choice. He must do an unpaid internship(but for credit) this summer for his major in order to advance to the junior/senior year coursework.Its required.We knew that going in and knew he wouldnt be able to earn income this summer.So far its costing us a 300$ plane ride this thursday as one place who wants to interview him demand it be in person and its too good a placement to pass up, and they required it to be this week.Thank goodness he doesnt have Friday classes.</p>
<p>I have a young neighbor who did an unpaid internship with NPR. It cost his parents quite a bit of $ because it was in a different, expensive city. He is now a full-time, paid on-air NPR reporter. Without doing the internship, I doubt he would be. </p>
<p>It all depends on the nature of the internship and the odds of getting a job in that field / with that organization without doing an internship. For some highly desirable positions, it’s tough to get a break without doing an unpaid internship.</p>
<p>jonri, my D is interning at an NPR station at her college…and she will be going to the Democratic Convention as a reporter…and in order to prep for that she will need to work more at the station over the summer, with her pay basically covering food, and airfair…room and board, well- “love you mommy and daddy”…</p>
<p>is unpaid, or very minimally paid worth it?..for a 19 year old with this kind of chance, you betcha!!</p>
<p>…I just wrote a nice, long response to this thread that was accidentally deleted before I posted, and I don’t really feel like trying to remember and then re-write what I had. :(</p>
<p>There is a big difference between an internship being “unpaid”, and the pay not being enough to cover costs. The first is pure, rank exploitation, the second makes it a business decision (sacrificing some short-term gain for long-term possibilities.) </p>
<p>We’ve had questions about that at my workplace. We hire (and pay) at-risk youth to work in our agency as interns, and provide them the supervision necessary to succeed. Our lawyers have told us quite clearly that not to pay them would be a clear violation of the Fair Labor Standards Act.</p>
<p>My high school son worked on an internship in a company last summer through a program run by a university. At the end he was paid by a lump sum stipend (which if divided by the hours is less than minimum wage) by the university with no FICA tax withheld. And he got a 1099-misc form this year showing the stipend amount.</p>
<p>The question is how should this be reported for tax purpose. I have got no official word on it. Some people think stipend is tax free. The IRS hotline person who did not sound knowledgeable on the issue said he need to pay tax plus self employment tax.</p>
<p>The fact he is a dependent make it even more complicated.</p>
<p>I think it depends a lot on the field. Financial internships usually pay, some of them quite well. Arts related internships often don’t pay or pay a miserable stipend. (Barely “carfare” to use an old New York phrase.) </p>
<p>If you want to be a museum curator, for example, you would be well advised to take an unpaid internship as an investment in your future. The same might be true of internships with architectural firms or design studios.</p>
<p>I’m consulting with my son on an “internship” for the summer. </p>
<p>As I read through the job descriptions, some of them sound like slave labor – i.e. we’ll give you a place to sleep and a minimal stipend at the end of the summer, if you stay. In exchange, plan to work really hard at something that makes money for us at least 40 hours a week. </p>
<p>He is looking for an ‘internship’ OR a traditional summer job in the broad based field of hospitality.</p>
<p>I am a museum administrator, and we have an active unpaid internship program. I don’t believe an appropriately structured unpaid internship is exploitative. We work closely with local colleges and univeristy placement and advising offices to match their students to the right departments/projects. In addition we will respond to unsolicited inquiries from students at farther distances who are eager to work with our collections and curators. At least in my field, as momrath noted, this is a time-honored and appropriate stepping stone to this career path. Some larger or well-endowed museums have the budget to pay stipends; we do not, and we are perhaps more typical for the field. Still, we will be flexible about hours to accomodate a student’s part-time job or school commitments. And we are very clear to lay out the responsibilities AND expectations from both sides: what we will provide the intern and the end product they can expect to walk away with, as well as what we expect them to contribute to our organization for the duration of their internship. They are not employed as slave labor, in fact, we will NOT accept interns just to catch up with the filing or if we don’t have suitable projects or the staff cannot provide effective and meaninful training and supervision. Our interns walk away from their experiences with real content, real experience, and a real addition to their resume. Our HR office also provides a 6-session orientation course that serves as an introduction to all aspects of museum work for all of our interns, whichever department they are working in, and closes with a resume-building, interview-training, career guidance session. Most of our interns will receive course credit for their experience and we take the program’s responsibility to provide a meaningful experience and training very seriously. In return we get the energy, enthusiasm, curiosity and commitment of a group of highly motivated and intelligent young people who make productive, positive contributions to our work.</p>
<p>I will grant that a museum or similar <em>non-profit</em> can offer some valuable internship experience to a college student. These are the same sorts of organizations that have rewarding volunteer spots that are important to the functioning of the organization.</p>
<p>What I was referring to in the post above was a <em>for-profit</em> resort in a popular summer area looking for help in the dining rooms and kitchens, calling it an internship, not compensating at even minimum wage.</p>
<p>I also think this depends a lot on the major. No one even thinks twice about the fact that student teaching is unpaid. My husband was paid quite well for a summer internship as an engineer. My son (English major, communication concentration) is applying for an internship that has free room and an $800/month stipend for food and then a couple of thousand at the end of the job. I think this will be pretty good if he gets it because he would get class credit and more importantly get a chance of working a job in his intended field plus it really won’t cost anything.</p>
<p>One needs to take the long view with respect to unpaid internship. Our son did an internship in Pasadena last summer, and while he was paid reasonably well, it would have been worth it had it been unpaid.</p>
<p>He learned a lot about the business and was given responsible assignments throughout the summer. </p>
<p>He made some good connections and was offered a job following graduation. </p>
<p>He received three very good letters of recommendation.</p>
<p>He got the chance to experience life in a big city environment, living in a Korean neighborhood of LA. This was as much a cultural experience for him as spending time abroad.</p>
<p>But perhaps the most valuable thing about last summer was confirmation that this was something he could be excited(maybe even passionate) about and devote the beginning years of his adult life doing. How valuable is that? </p>
<p>Any one of these byproducts is so much more valuable that a few thoudand bucks for books and spending money if the long view is considered. Many students shell out more that $100k for their college education so why quibble about a very small fraction of that in order to gain the benefits that a good internship will offer.</p>