Internships Anya Kamenetz (2006) and Jennifer Halperin

Internships

Anya Kamenetz (2006) and Jennifer Halperin (2010) take opposing views of the issue of unpaid internships. In their pieces, the discuss some of the same issues, but they also discuss different issues, and the two writers certainly come to different conclusions about the issue of unpaid internships. At the heart of the issue are unpaid, rather than paid, internships, because this is a rising trend in both business and academia to use student interns to perform work. The internship provides valuable experience to the student, but there is some criticism of the practice of not paying interns because they are providing their time and labor. This paper will discuss and dissect the points that each of these authors is making about unpaid internships.

The first point that is made is about fairness of the unpaid internship. Both authors agree that, in general, internships are a good thing for students. The internship provides the student with an opportunity to gain real world experience, something that not only enhances the student's abilities but also the quality of the student's resume as well. As both writers concede this point, the debate centers around the idea of not paying interns. Halperin, who appears to work as an internship counselor, notes that the experiences, and contacts that the students gain from their internships are the most valuable part of the internship experience. Having the opportunity to do real work in a real company in their chosen field has, in itself, significant value to the student. Pay, therefore, is not always an important factor. Halperin notes that many students willingly accept unpaid internships, and presents testimonial from a number of students with respect to their favorable views of their own unpaid internship experiences.

This argument is contrasted by Kamenetz, who notes two factors that Halperin either downplays or ignores. The first is that even if the students gain value from their experience they should still be paid. In particular, Kamenetz argues that there is a substantive difference between working for pay and working for free. As a result of this difference -- and she fails to adequately explain the nature of the difference -- the experience is simply not the same. Working for free does not, she argues, provide experience that is as good as advertised. Moreover, she argues that the student would be better working in a real world situation where he or she exchanged labor for wages, just like in the real world, and would learn more about hard work and the nature of working life through such experiences. Also, Kamenetz objects to the unpaid internship as something available mostly to those who can afford to work for free. While Halperin offers that some of her interns do take unpaid internships while juggling other studies and jobs, she does not note that such a practice is widespread.

Another point that Kamenetz makes is that unpaid internships represent a distortion in the labor market. These internships replace some workers, and drive down real wages. This disruption is not seen in a favorable light. Taking more of an individual approach, Halperin argues that those who partake in the unpaid internship are likely to gain based on the experience and contacts that they make. Arguably, if one can afford an unpaid internship, one might already have halfway decent connections in this world.

Kamenetz raises this objection about exclusivity a little further when she makes note of the tradeoff between doing work and doing an unpaid internship. Not only does she argue that the internship does not deliver real world experience, but that if one is doing real work, one should learn to put a value on that work. By giving one's work away for free, one is failing to learn one of the most important life lessons -- if you are doing work, you should be getting paid. Ultimately, that argument makes a lot of sense, and the only reason companies are tapping students as a source of unpaid labor is because nobody else is gullible enough to work for free.

Ultimately, these two commentators are not arguing directly against each other, so it is difficult to compare the cases that they make. Kamenetz often focuses on broader economic issues, but does take the time to make a largely unsubstantiated swipe at the quality of work that unpaid interns do. More likely, unpaid interns do roughly the same caliber of work as paid interns or other low-level employees. Thus, they are receiving the workplace benefits of the internship, as Halperin argues. Her point, however, that students should be excited about the chance to do an unpaid internship, is just silly. On that, Kamenetz makes the stronger point by far -- one should always get paid for doing work, and there is something important to learn about the working world in that. If one is working hard and getting paid not much, and with no prospect for advancement, that is a real life lesson. There are few life lessons in working hard for nothing, since nobody who knows any better would do it. Indeed, three of the people that provide testimonials for Halperin are currently unemployed, which shows that maybe their experience working for free did not strengthen their resume all that much, no matter how much they think they got out of the experience.