It is a sure sign of growing up when students abandon the summer break’s sweet sunshine to toil in the dimly-lit offices of the professional world.
Another mile marker on the way to adulthood is getting paid for such toil.
But there is an ever-increasing disconnect between these two markers, which could serve as a roadblock to students hurdling toward gainful employment without the steady propulsion of Daddy’s cash.
This disconnect is the morally reprehensible but ever popular unpaid internship.
I spent my harried summer scurrying around the offices of a medium-sized metro newspaper. I worked five days a week, regularly drove the length of the state and diligently completed every task my editor assigned.
At the end of the day, I took home nothing but experience from the affair.
Experience may fill the mind and resume, but it leaves the gas tank and stomach wanting more.
It is troubling now that more and more students will find themselves facing the prospect of working without pay or wading into the abyss of our current job climate without marketable experience.
This problem is not confined to the journalism industry. In its 2011 report, the National Association of Colleges and Employers found nearly half of the most recent internships held by college seniors were unpaid.
“It’s a growing concern,” said Kayla Lato, coordinator of Experiential Education for University Career Services. “They have become more prevalent and more of a intern.”
What exactly “advantages” means is debatable and too vague to dictate what practices are ethical for the various industries that employ unpaid interns.
Lato said her department polices internships to ensure they follow regulation. But she also agreed there is some murkiness within federal regulations.
This is where the University perhaps unwillingly gets its hands dirty.
In order to circumvent vague labor laws, many companies require interns to receive credit for these unpaid positions. This academic credit is provided by many colleges, making them accessory to this unsavory practice.
But one can hardly blame individual colleges because if they pulled support for unpaid positions, companies could easily milk another school in the highly saturated pool of desperate students.
Instead, much of the blame should be lobbed at the corporate towers that house some slimy executive plotting to exploit students desperate to get their foot in the door.
But the University is not without blame.
At times I found working for free was demotivating, depressing and feasibly difficult, but the greatest insult was when I received a $1,200 bill for the three credits I received during the summer.
Perhaps if I was utilizing the expertise of the University’s faculty, this bill would be easier to digest.
But I wasn’t.
I was 1,000 miles away, detached from any instructional support from the school, but paying a ransom so the company employing me could have my work for free.
So if working for free doesn’t break the back of disadvantaged students, paying the University for the right to work makes matters even worse.
Lato said numerous schools give credits for internship and aid programs for unpaid interns have been discussed amongst colleges.
It’s simply an oversight that at the very least the practice of charging students for job experience has not been solved.
Might I humbly suggest some solutions to our respectable deans or Student Government if they want to take up an issue of real student importance. I understand times are hard financially so creating any sort of stipend to support unpaid interns is unlikely.
Perhaps credit could be administered in the fall semester so full time students won’t see any increased cost from credits earned working in summer. Or perhaps students could have the option of receiving only one credit for their summer work to lessen the financial blow for those who have no need for three credits.
Tuition is on a trajectory to continue annually increasing ad nauseum. This problem needs to be solved so future generations have the opportunity to receive this essential employment experience before braving the job market.
 
Xerxes Wilson is a 22-year-old mass communications major from Lucedale, Miss.
 
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Contact Xerxes Wilson at [email protected]