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The teachers we loved
Writers send valentines to the people who opened their minds
(02/12/99)

The reluctant accuser
By Alexandra Robbins
When faced with quasi-assault from a friend, a young student finds neither college counselors nor handbooks have an answer
(02/10/99)

Camille on Campus
By Camille Paglia
Penned off in gilded ghettos, the scholars of sex miss the complex biological and cultural story of human sexual nature
(02/10/99)

Pact with the CEO
By James C. Luh
As technology licensing programs gain more currency in American universities, universities will surely gain more American currency, but will research suffer?
(02/05/99)

Death wishes
By Daren Fonda
George Minois' exhaustive study traces the long, strange history of suicide
(02/05/99)

BROWSE THE
IVORY TOWER CAREER
ARCHIVE

----------Internship hell
IS PREVIOUS EXPERIENCE REALLY NECESSARY FOR ANOTHER SUMMER OF PHOTOCOPYING, FILING AND GOFERING?

BY ANDY DEHNART

The vast expanse of white space on the letter sent the undeniable message: rejected.

I wasn't surprised that the newspaper rebuffed me for one of its coveted summer internships. As the only daily in the area, the Orlando Sentinel -- the print arm of the Tribune's Central Florida media conglomerate -- obviously has its pick of summer intern labor from local colleges. The text of the form letter was stock and unoriginal: We received a half-million applications, you're a wonderful human being, Sophie's choice was minor compared to ours and so on. But when I read the second to last sentence (which, admittedly, was also the fourth sentence), I almost choked on my saliva: "The successful candidates had at least two previous summer internships."

What?

I read the sentence at least three times. Yep, there it was: The summer interns they'd chosen had already been interns (presumably) elsewhere, at least twice. Apparently, the Orlando Sentinel needs assurance that you already know how to photocopy once you arrive on its doorstep. And the editors clearly didn't get the impression from my résumé, extensive clips and glowing letters of recommendation that I could tell a copy button from a stoplight. To assure them I had those skills, I needed copying experience at another paper.

So there it was, the endless Catch-22: To get an internship at a daily newspaper, I had to have already been an intern at another daily newspaper. How the hell was I supposed to get a summer internship at a paper if I hadn't already had one? However ridiculous and silly it might be, it's a common requirement, and one that might make more sense if the positions weren't just glorified temp jobs. But what interns actually do at most places isn't a surprise: They photocopy, file and gofer. Being in the same room as a staff writer or in close proximity to the copy desk during the course of a daily newspaper internship would be events of write-home-and-tell-mom proportions.

Despite the glass ceiling, I confess that all three of my internships -- none of them at newspapers -- were positive experiences that transcended the normal intern existence of working as a photocopy whore. But those internships didn't exactly fall into my lap. The positions were mostly unadvertised and with smaller, lesser-known organizations. The internships that the airheads in the career services office chatter about endlessly and post on bulletin boards have horribly congested waiting lines that ultimately lead to unsatisfying rides. It's like going to the county fair: You buy tickets, line up with a bunch of sweaty people and wait too long in the greasy air. Once you finally get to walk through the fun house and its giant spinning hamster wheel, you wonder what you went through all that trouble and misery for.

For the most part, internships have become a way for corporations and organizations to get (mostly free) labor, and for university students to simultaneously add points to the experiential columns of their already over-commodified educations. It's a buyer's market for internships, and colleges blindly play along. And why wouldn't they? They can gather and deposit tuition dollars without lifting a finger, and look good in the process.

Between my freshman and sophomore years, I interned twice a week in my congressman's main district office. When I asked my academic advisor before the summer began if I could get credit for my efforts, he said I could, but I'd have to pay -- $500 a credit hour. Of course, the private college I go to forgot to mention that in its glossy viewbook; it didn't forget to include the exact number of miles to the beach from campus, however.

So if I wanted credit for my efforts, it would cost me $1,500 to provide free labor every Monday and Wednesday to the United States government in a congressman's satellite office. I chose the less-expensive route, opting just for the experience. But I remained baffled: How exactly did the university justify that fee? It can't take minimum-wage, data-entering work-study students some 290 hours to process the paperwork associated with a 12-week internship. And the money definitely doesn't go to the sponsoring professors, who don't get a nickel for interns under their academic supervision.

As a final, perfectly aimed slap upside the head, most colleges prevent you from getting credit -- tuition dollars or not -- for paid internships. Survive the application process and photocopy your way through a semester, and all you've got to show for it are toner stains on your Abercrombie and Fitch pants. Something about getting fair compensation for work apparently devalues the academic benefit of the experience.

It's become increasingly more than apparent that these college work experiences aren't really internships: They're unsalaried jobs disguised as preprofessional apprenticeships. You're not there to learn the ropes, but to pull them, and for many places, you sure as hell better know where they are when you walk through the door.

I refuse to retreat to the security of grad school following graduation: Right now, after 16 years of semi-formal education, I want in-the-trenches experience, not in-a-classroom theory. But this doesn't bode well for job prospects. If I need other internships to get a damn internship, what's expected for a "real" job?
SALON | Feb. 17, 1999

Andy Dehnart is a freelance writer and a senior journalism major at Stetson University. He edits the weekly student newspaper there, the Reporter.

Are you an underemployed scholar, a proud but jobless owner of a spanking new bachelor's degree or a student struggling to make ends meet? Send questions about getting a life outside the ivory tower to askcarol@salonmagazine.com for a new advice column by Carol Lloyd, author of "Creating a Life Worth Living," a career guide for creative people.