When to take an unpaid internship

Today I gave a friend what was either really good or really bad advice.  She’s been applying for internships (mostly in public radio, largely unpaid) for awhile now, and she hasn’t had a lot of luck.  But today, she got an offer.  I told her not to take it.

Here’s why: this girl is brilliant, dedicated and able to make even the most confusing science stories appealing to the ear.  Today, she heard back from a company that advertised for interns to work on a documentary project it was undertaking.  It should have been the perfect opportunity, given her background in computer-assisted and long-form reporting.  But in the e-mail she got, the company conceded that it wasn’t actually a news outlet, advertiser or market research firm, and while she wouldn’t be doing clerical work per se, her job responsibilities would include watching a couple of non-fiction TV channels and writing up reports on what she saw.  Alarm bells went off in my head.

There’s been a lot of debate recently about unpaid internships, and perhaps I’m still fired up after what someone in the photojournalism sequence wrote last semester about students journalists often selling themselves short (she also weighs in on the intern debate here).  But I don’t think it’s right for students to take unpaid internships unless the experience they would get from the internship is absolutely invaluable to their career.  An unpaid first internship at a daily newspaper in your hometown?  Yes, if it helps you land a paying gig the next summer.  A second unpaid internship at a place like the Washington Post?  Yes, because what you learn (and who you meet) will probably be the thing that makes your resume stand out from the pile.  But an unpaid internship with a company that admits a.) it’s not a news outlet and b.) not really asking you to do what it originally advertised? No way.

I will not be taking an internship this summer.  I had a paid internship last summer, and the experience I got at the State Journal-Register was invaluable (and the unpaid experience I got at the Associated Press the year before was probably what landed me the position).  I probably did better work at the SJR than I did at the AP because I was getting paid.  That’s not to say I didn’t care about the unpaid position, and in fact, I was thrilled to have it.  But when you’re away from home, away from your family and friends, eating ramen every night because it’s the only meal you can afford, it’s not hard to get discouraged.  And it’s very likely your work will suffer.

It’s hard to put a price on the experience that will help you get your first job.  But it’s also important to realize that if you’re losing more on the arrangement than you make, it might not be worth your time – especially if it’s going to require you to take out even more student loans because you didn’t make anything to put towards your tuition the next semester.  I am not taking an internship this summer.  The cost of a short term lease and relocating to another town, possibly on the other side of the country?  It’s more than I can currently afford.

Bottom line – in an ideal world, we would all get paid for busting our butts from May to August, or at least we’d be able to shoulder the burden of not getting paid.  But there’s also no shame in listing that restaurant job on your resume, either.  Putting yourself through college is admirable, too.