Commentary
Paying to Play
I wasn’t rich enough to intern for free. So I quit. Now, who out there will hire an accomplished dog walker/personal assistant/cocktail waitress with a B.A.?
sjw283@nyu.edu
I stood in front of the editor at a small women’s lifestyle magazine and nodded politely.
“Here’s my credit card,” she said. “Make sure you get me those little rubber earplug things. But, oh my God—not the loose ones. I have to have the ones with strings attached.”
I scribbled “strings attached!!!” on my notepad.
“And we need all-natural lemon juice for the art department,” she continued. “All natural. Not like, straight from the lemon. It has to be the kind that comes in the yellow, lemon-shaped bottle. Got it? Make sure it’s the bottle that looks like the lemon.”
More scribbling.
“And when you get back—can you look up places that sell dog bowls? Like…modern, cool ones? For cool people? We’re doing this great spread on cool places to shop for dog bowls. For cool people.”
“Right. Got it. Dog bowls,” I repeated. But what I was thinking was: “Ear plugs with strings attached?”
That was my job. Well, not really my job.
Two years ago, as a college sophomore, I was struggling to juggle school, my part-time job and up to 24 hours each week at this internship. Soon I realized I just couldn’t do it. The unpaid work was cutting into time I could be using to make money, and my bank account was evaporating. I was exhausted, often ill, learning little, and strapped for cash. Then I had an epiphany: I wasn’t rich enough to work for nothing. So I quit.
Internships are a required rite of passage for college students looking to position themselves in the work force upon graduation. We spend months addressing stacks of envelopes, hunting down dog bowls and running other errands—almost always without pay—in hopes that it might lead to a real job in the end. And too often, we are the ones who pay–for the course credit you need for the internship.
Others in my journalism program can attest to the internships they’ve held, at Vogue, MTV, Teen Magazine, the New York Post, ABC or Conde Nast, just to name a few prestigious names. But behind the glam titles, the jobs we’re paying the university about $4,000 a semester to do are often menial ones.
Now my lack of adequate internship experience is generally frowned upon – even when I explain how I left when I saw I wasn’t going to get to write, or to even be near journalism (I too busy hunting down boutique merchandise).
Anyway, in New York, a city of $7 Budweisers, $4 breakfast muffins and million-dollar studio apartments, where can an unpaid intern live? Students who need to work to live should not be exploited as free labor.
For those whose parents are footing the bills, it’s a foot in the door and a step up the ladder of success. The rest of us, who can’t afford to make that choice, are going to feel cheated.
I’ll soon finish school and construct my resume. Is there a publishing house out there that will take a chance on an accomplished dog walker/personal assistant/cocktail waitress with a B.A.? Against the competition from veteran Vogue and Vanity Fair gopher-interns and diligent desk organizers, will my practical experience and work ethic be regarded as merely virtuous?
I know — virtue is its own reward. And there’s always the lottery. But what were those odds again?
Photo provided by Stephanie Wendelin