By Kiara Catanzaro
Copy Editor
To be broke, or not to be broke; that is the question.
The majority of college students are in debt from taking out thousands of dollars in loans. Because of this, one would think that there would be more paid internships available for students, however, that’s not the case.
Many majors at St. Bonaventure University require students to complete a number of internship prior to graduation. In The Russell J. Jandoli School of Journalism and Mass Communication, students are required to complete 400 internship hours (300 of which must be off campus).
One of the problems with internships is the time commitment. If a student is working 40 hours a week at an unpaid internship over summer, they have to give up his or her part-time job to gain experience for his or her future career. This leaves many students with a choice between graduating with experience or working a part-time job for $8 an hour at a local Tim Hortons.
The bottom line is that most students can’t afford to work for free.
In unpaid internships, companies are receiving free labor from students. For example, if a college student pays thousands of dollars to take photography or an editing class in college, employers are getting free labor to use those skills. It would be different if the company were instructing students in photography and editing skills, however the skills are required to get the internship in the first place.
My question is, what is the point of learning a skill when you’re not paid to use the skill in real world experiences? Look at it this way, a company would have to pay for a photographer or editor for those skills, but they resort to college students who are required to work for free in order to graduate.
Although there are a limited number of paid internships, students should try to seek those opportunities. This way, they won’t have to choose between working a part-time job, or gaining experience at an internship.
Another option is freelance writing in college. If you specialize in writing, you can sell your articles, short stories to websites and blogs that will pay you for writing. Not only will you have your work published and paid for, journalism and mass communication majors can count freelance opportunities as internship hours.
It’s difficult to know that most college students will graduate with a degree that costs them upwards of $60,000 or more. Why add the burden of working for free when they are using skills from their expensive education?
catanzka12@bonaventure.edu
