As head of a graphic design program, I get a lot of requests to publicize internships. Even though some are clearly exploitive (such as wanting a designer to work for free with no supervision or educational component beyond the work experience), I tend to think that many such people are just naïve rather than consciously predatory. They actually believe that a chance to work for them is a cool opportunity that will give a student her "first chance." I suspect that many of them also assume that they are the portal to the "real world" and I am an incompetent design wannabe who is teaching because I couldn’t make it in the world of business. Many people offering "internships" just haven’t considered anything beyond wanting something done that’s not in their budgets.
I pass on most offers to the students (although often with a note disapproving of the offer being made.) Much to the surprise of many making such offers, we don’t consider giving class credit for an internship that is not supervised by designers or someone else who can teach the intern something about design, and only with an actual plan that demonstrates educational value.
(I draw the line at promoting most design "contests," however.)
We believe that a intern should be paid even though a good free internship is likely to be a net fiscal loss for the employer. We don’t enforce that even though we should. Many students cannot afford to devote many weeks to an unpaid job so unpaid internships bolster social immobility. (Ten thousand of ECU’s thirty thousand undergraduate students come from low income families and a third of our undergraduates have never had a parent or guardian who has attended school past high school so we’re particularly aware of such issues.)
We all do plenty of volunteer work for our professions (and, to some extent, to help our careers.) There is nothing wrong with encouraging the same for students of various levels but that should be coupled with awareness of setting up expectations that can only be achieved by those who are already well off.
Gunnar
Gunnar Swanson
East Carolina University
graphic design program
http://www.ecu.edu/cs-cfac/soad/graphic/index.cfm
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Gunnar Swanson Design Office
1901 East 6th Street
Greenville NC 27858
USA
http://www.gunnarswanson.com
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+1 252 258-7006
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