Matteo Venieri
venam@bu.edu
BOSTON – Internships are an important component of students’ career, but far too often experience is the only compensation they end up receiving. Accepting unpaid internships has become the norm, no matter the duties or the time invested. But many Boston University students have discovered that the experience they gained can be a valuable currency itself.
“In this job market,” says BU student Max Staschover, “people are desperate to find an internship, so they take what they can get.” Desperation is in fact a key word to describe the situation of many of his peers. The average annual increase in college tuition grew by almost 260% from 1980, according to Business Insider. But as such hefty bills keep skyrocketing, finding a fair compensation for labor is getting increasingly critical. “You just apply anywhere and pray that you get one that is paid,” he says.
Caroline Clark, a senior at BU, was an intern at Boston Magazine last summer from June to August, working 15 hours per week. However, she didn’t get paid. “I definitely believe I should’ve been paid,” she says. “It was super shady, especially because my position involved a lot of manual labor during the many events we organized.”
Like Clark, other students found themselves not only working for free, but also having to make sacrifices. For some, it involved spending their own money for transportation, and for others even physical and emotional distress for the work conditions. Such was the case for Kristen Chin, Master’s student at BU. Her unpaid internship in Costa Rica took a toll on her body because of a bad reaction to the required medications, but ultimately it proved to be an important lesson.
She is not the only one to have expressed similar feelings. For many students, unpaid internships don’t equal to simply providing free labor for their employers. Some of them accept unpaid internships hoping that it will lead to better employment opportunities down the road. In fact, monetary compensation is just one of the factors that guides them. “My number one priority,” explains Chin, “is being able to learn doing something that I like. And my experience in Costa Rica made me realize that I could achieve anything I want.”
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