Living in the Internship Era

Daniel Roberts

The task of finding a summer job rolls around every year, usually by March or April, and it is a burden that always seems to weigh heavily on the minds of American college students. Some teens find a job that involves only light work—scoop ice cream down the street from their beach house, maybe baby sit here and there to make pocket cash. Others challenge themselves with a more demanding post, perhaps working construction every day or waiting tables at a fancy restaurant. Still others give up completely and spend the three months watching TV on the couch, lying out at the beach or pool, and generally sponging off Mommy and Daddy for money.

Yet everyone, it seems, shares a general knowledge that at some point down the road, they will have to “get serious,” which, according to general consensus, is a code phrase for “find an internship.” Somehow, this has been ingrained in us years ago. We have also been trained to understand that the point at which this “getting serious” needs to occur is right around, oh, the summer after junior year.

My summer preference has been, for the past five years, to work as a camp counselor. As far as I can tell, this position affords the best of all worlds. I get to work with kids, spend all day out on the tennis courts (which keeps me fit and tan), live away from home, and still feel like I am working hard and earning honest money. Of course, as soon as last summer ended I knew the fun was over: my junior year at Midd was about to begin, and with it my plans of doing anything enjoyable over the summer would die.

Why the need for an internship? To get a job, of course. A 2006 NY Times op-ed gave this analogy: an internship is to a first job what community service hours were to college. You need to get some under your belt in order to nab the prize you actually care about. Companies have bought into this system like never before, prompting many social commentators to call this the “Internship Era” for today’s unlucky college students, and let me assure you “unlucky” is exactly what we are to find ourselves in this environment. The competition for internships has never been higher, and neither has the percentage of college kids who will complete at least one before graduating (that percentage is 78). Clearly, we have all been convinced to participate in this system. We have no choice. But the system is flawed. In fact, forget “flawed,” it is downright ridiculous.

First of all, the completion of numerous internships during college is no longer a “bonus” that might help a recent college grad in the job market; it is now an expectation. As Peter Vogt has written, “Internships are no longer optional, they’re required.” This fundamentally favors the rich. Think about it this way: let’s agree that an internship is not a “job.” An internship is a supposed “great opportunity” that forces a college kid to work his or her ass off, cooped up in some office all summer, scrambling to make photocopies and hoping to God that the adults are impressed and ultimately wooed. The vast majority of these positions are completely unpaid, which is laughable when one considers how hard the interns often work.

By expecting college kids to do summer internships if they have any hope of nabbing a full-time job, companies have established a standard that punishes any students who normally need to make money during the summer. Those who come from wealthy families are fine, because either their spending money during the academic year comes from their parents, or the parents promise to pay them a “salary” as a reward for taking an unpaid internship. Meanwhile, those kids who rely on a legitimate summer job to provide their spending money during the year are forced to either take an unpaid internship and puzzle over how to afford their books in September, or ignore the internship craze, knowing that it may screw them down the road when they are scrambling for a post-college job.

In addition to favoring the private-schooled, non-financial aid, over-privileged Nantucket elite, the internship system also undermines some of the most basic tenets of job hunting. It used to be that when a person applied for a job, there would be an interview during which he or she could flex their charm and demonstrate what makes them tick. Whatever it is that makes you want this job— and makes you so sure you deserve it— would come out in a face-to-face sit-down with your potential employer. Now, all that is lost, because as soon as those scrutinizing eyes scroll down your resumé and see only one or, god forbid, zero internships listed, they write you off completely.

Where, then, is the drive to learn? To take what you’ve been given from education, to gather up your book smarts and your street smarts and apply them to something, hoping to rise to your potential? What happens to this if the new system relies solely on a scramble for summer internships, piling them up so as to cash them in later on like chips at the casino window?

Something about this system has to change soon, or else investment banks, publishing houses, fashion design offices, and law firms everywhere are going to be filled with recent college grads whose daddies were connected enough to get them internships back in college. Meanwhile, some possibly better-qualified candidates will be “getting by” doing Teach for America because they chose to spend their summers in other ways.

Internships: Say Goodbye to your Summer

Audrey Nelson

The summer is fast approaching and we, like countless numbers of students before us, are met with the conundrum of a lifetime: to seek an internship, or not to seek an internship.  Frankly, I would like to meet the first student who announced with glee, “You know what?  I think the summer between junior and senior year is an important time to sell your soul and commit to a serious, laborious internship.”  In fact, if I were to meet this individual, I might kick him squarely in his, uh, jaw… and question his motives.  Who said that working at a kid’s summer camp is unimportant?  Aren’t I making the world a better place when I teach a youngster how to swim, or show him how to tie his hiking boots?  Isn’t that more enriching than bringing coffee every morning to Larry, the Supervising Account Manager on the third floor who likes his files alphabetized, his lattes hot, and his coffee break uninterrupted by over-zealous college interns who are trying to network their way into upper management?

Once the summer internship topic is breached in conversation, the direction it generally takes with certain individuals is, “Well, I suppose I’m interning this summer because I’m taking my future seriously, and I hope to get some experience for my career.”  This is occasionally said with disdain, as if those of us who work at summer camps are throwing any hopes of future success out the window.  Because, of course, how could any summer job that is considered “fun” be a true resume booster?  Excuse me, but I’d like to think that by coming to Middlebury in the first place, I’ve already taken as many proactive steps as you in pursuing my dreams for the future.  Please don’t play that card in conversation; we both have the same hand, and I will call your bluff.

In reality, I think camp is where a lot of people would like to be for the summer months.  The whole “paying for college” thing has gotten in the way of so many students’ blithe summer lifestyles that they probably think they have no other choice than to snag an internship.  I’ll admit that the need to earn actual money over the summers has been bolstered by the ever-increasing tuition of Middlebury.  $47,000 a year has heightened the pressure of landing a decent job over the summer months, and I see several people with that in mind, begrudgingly shuffling to Career Services for those paid internship meetings.

Come on: we have plenty of time to be serious.  After graduation, doors will be opened and we will all have the opportunity to choose a job that works for us— or rather, to choose a job we can work for. So go ahead and commit to your summer internship.  But quit making smarmy comments to those of us who are counselors, returning to our “fun” summer camps.  And when you and I both land jobs post-graduation, I’ll be comfortable knowing that it wasn’t because I abandoned the chance to spend a summer teaching kids how to swim.