The Ship

It's an endentured servant, it's a slave, No! It's an...


Intern.


According to the National Association of Colleges and Employers, today about 50% of college graduates have had an internship, compared with a mere 17% in 1992. Why has working for free gained such popularity? Why now are employers suddenly so concerned with experience, when years ago a comical list of summer jobs suited most of them just fine?


With the poor economy and limited opportunities, quality jobs are more difficult to come by now than ever. Along with the loss of such quality (and paid) experience, comes the loss of marketable skills. Employers, short on time and money, simply can't afford to train new and uninformed employees, and the prospective employees in turn cannot receive the experience necessary for making themselves appealing to employers. 


It seems to be a never-ending cycle, remedied only by the solution of unpaid internships - opportunities for young students and job-seekers to obtain knowledge in their desired field without standing in the way of a company's success.


Since the advent of this system, its popularity and scope have only increased, and now the majority of students complete an internship at some point in their college career. However, with the increase in demand, the difficulty of obtaining an internship has risen as well. 


35 years ago, when my mother attended the American University Washington Semester Program, she recalls it being relatively simple to find a company delighted at the prospect of a free and competent helping hand. 

After all, such an arrangement is a seemingly perfect solution, a win-win of sorts, or so it seemed until recent laws passed by the Obama administration set severe restrictions on just what type of labor an unpaid intern can perform. After all, it's easy to see why services rendered entirely and willingly without compensation would raise a red flag for the government, especially when they've become so mind-bogglingly difficult to obtain.
"Who wouldn’t want a smart college student working for free 16 hours a week?" my mother questioned. And logically, it's true. But recently things have gotten out of hand, and the competition for internships at certain desirable, big-name organizations has become nothing less than cut-throat.


For example, according to a source at National Public Radio, an internship with them is akin to "getting into Harvard", an astonishing fact considering the charitable nature of interning itself. 


Yet, with the state of the economy and the widespread desperation for employment in one's respective field, an internship may be a hopeful job applicant's only ticket into a large company or organization that might otherwise ignore their existence. Moving up within has proven to be easier than breaking in from without - and such access to quality employment is more crucial now than ever before. 


The debate, however, is far from over, and people everywhere are weighing in on exactly what should be expected from an unpaid intern and how interning's possible opportunities for young hopefuls can best be exploited. 

I can only hope I'll have more luck with internships than Harvard applications.