On Internships
As I’ve watched my flowchart get reposted around the internet a bit, there is a topic that is always brought up in comments that I didn’t address on the chart itself: internships. I purposefully avoided talking about them on the chart, just as I avoided diving into great detail about non-profit work—because both are pretty complex matters. When it comes to non-profit work, I know several designers that make their entire living working at or doing freelance for non-profits. On the chart, I wanted to get the point across that most non-profits are legitimate businesses and that while they aren’t declaring profit at the end of the year, they still have expected operating costs and your design work should not necessarily be left out of the mix. Anyway, I’m already off on a tangent, let’s get back to the issue at hand.
When I was in college, my university wouldn’t give you academic credit for an unpaid internship. Local design studios knew this, and knew that if they wanted an intern from Tyler School of Art, they would have to fork over some cash (albeit very little cash). It worked out great. Of the three internships I had in college, all were paid. That doesn’t mean I was raking it in, but I was able to change my humble diet of ramen to…pasta.
There is (and has always been) a giant trend to compensate interns in “experience” alone. It’s one thing for a 18-year-old that has never opened Photoshop to walk into a tiny design studio and expect little or no compensation, but the more I talk to young designers struggling to get work, the more I see people in their early and mid-twenties (most with bachelor and graduate degrees) having to settle for unpaid internships in their quest to find a real job. These are people with real skills and they are being taken advantage of. Everyone knows that you won’t get rich from an internship, but companies (even tiny ones) can afford to pay you something for your time, even if what you’re being paid amounts to little more than minimum wage in a city like New York. The big argument you’ll hear against paying interns is that you are learning a lot from the company or designer you’re working for and that their time is so valuable that they are working at a loss to educate you. This is complete bullshit. Well, maybe not complete bullshit but definitely a hearty serving of it.
If you’ve ever had an internship, you know that many of your duties revolve around doing things that other people really don’t want to do—from general office and gopher work like shredding papers, organizing, standing in line at the post office, and getting coffee, to the slightly more design-industry-related stock photo researching. In my opinion, this is the stuff you should definitely be getting paid for. I’m sure someone could argue that you learn something by hovering over a trash can for three hours to the discordant buzz of a shredder, but seriously. Pay that person. Reward them monetarily for being your tedium slave. However you verbally package the skill set they’re building while doing your chores, you are delusional if you think they enjoy it.
Where it gets a bit tricky is when interns are actually doing something of value for a company. Many of you readers will jump in here and say “Well you’re practically an employee! You should be paid as one!” This is true, especially if you are working enough hours that it becomes difficult to have a second pay-the-bills job, but it’s a bit more nuanced than that. You are doing things that are employee-like—converting Quark files to InDesign files, archiving, prepping files for the designer to send to print, maybe even doing some light design work that will most likely never be shown to the client. Should you be compensated for this? Yes, of course. Again, I think interns should be monetarily compensated no matter what. But as you know, money isn’t everything and the most important part of any internship or junior level job should be the experience and knowledge you take away.
I know you all picked up your pitchforks at the mere mention of the word “experience”. Like “exposure”, “experience” can be a very toxic word when used by the wrong person. We’ve all at one point had a job or freelance gig that offered this intangible payment in lieu of real money. Some of us lucked out and actually received a wonderful education, and some of us walked away with an in-depth knowledge of copy machine maintenance. The thing is, anyone heading into an internship absolutely wants experience. If you aren’t looking to learn something and improve your skills in every job you have over the course of your career, you have probably found yourself in the wrong industry. But before you agree to a low paying job, examine what you’ll actually be learning there. Sometimes that experience is very valuable, especially if your employer takes a lot of time to personally educate you—it’s almost like getting paid to go to grad school.
It can be very difficult to have this kind of one-on-one education at a larger company. If you’ve ever interned for a company with more than 50 employees, you know that generally you’re not getting the attention of a supervisor for more than an hour or two every week. That’s not to say there aren’t exceptions to this rule, but (for the most part) a supervisor willing to spend quality facetime with you—time spent actually educating you and critiquing your work—is as mythical a creature as the unicorn. Your job as the office intern is to help out and demand as little time as possible from your employer. The education you’re receiving has more to do with office politics than design. In exchange for this, for being the unseen helper cog in the company machine, you should be paid and paid fairly well.
Employers: before you get in a big huff, I’m not saying you need to pay interns in gold bricks. There is a giant chasm between what interns are usually paid and what qualifies as fair wages in a big city. Have a few less fancy coffees in a week and you can afford to pay an intern ten dollars an hour. Also, we can totally see through the full-time jobs disguised as “internships”. You’re not fooling anyone.
Future Interns: Should you ever take an unpaid internship? I’d advise against it unless under very specific circumstances (like job shadowing or a position in which you’re not actually doing useful work for an employer). The reason why there are so many unpaid internships is because so many people are willing to work for free. My university didn’t allow its students to take unpaid internships and by doing so forced local businesses to offer paid internships if they wanted to employ one of its students. Someone has to step in and say “this is the standard and what you are offering is below the standard” before anyone will stop and take notice. Should you take a lower paying internship that offers more hands-on training experience and one-on-one time with a supervisor? In my opinion, yes absolutely. While you should be compensated something for the work you do, your employer’s time is valuable, and if they are taking time to give you a proper education, the lower pay can be well worth it.