To Intern or Not To Intern
What to consider when deciding if an unpaid internship is right for you.
If you are a student of the arts - current or aspiring - you know success in the fields of art, design, and music are largely about who you know. For the large majority of aspiring creatives out there diving into that sea of potentially important people can be not only intimidating, but extremely difficult. For this reason, thousands of students flood sites like HireNew, LinkedIn, and Indeed in search of internships.
A positive to come out of the last year and a half of change and struggle is the conversion of many in-person internships to an online setting. This change has supplied each applicant with an even wider array of jobs to pick from. However, many of those internships are not paid opportunities and many applicants have found themselves at a crossroads these last few weeks. Activist social media accounts across platforms such as Instagram and Twitter are rampant with content claiming that hiring unpaid interns furthers inequality on account of the fact that many cannot afford to work for free. This, in truth, cannot be disputed. Nonetheless there is the question of whether every applicant should turn down an unpaid internship if they can afford it.
The answer? It is a completely personal decision. Rather than a blatant here is “why you should” and “why you should NOT” list, below are some questions to ask yourself if you are one of the many who cannot decide if the experience is worth the lack of monetary compensation:
1. Is it an opportunity to get to know your industry? Will you have an opportunity like this again?
2. Can you support yourself without the internship providing monetary compensation ?
3. Is there time to work a paid job in addition to the internship?
4. Are you willing to sacrifice some summer fun for the internship and potentially a paid job on top of it? Be realistic with what you want to do with your time and your summer.
5. Will the internship provide an experience or opportunity to learn that will enhance your chances of landing a paid internship or job in the future?
