Paying for unpaid internships

The New York Times discusses the bleak job market for 20 year-old recent graduates and the over-saturation of unpaid internships. Parents are now paying companies thousands of dollars to enlist their sons and daughters into programs to find unpaid internships. Andrew Topel enrolled in a service called The University of Dreams and landed a summer internship as an assistant at Ford Models Agency.

“It would’ve been awfully difficult” to get a job like that, said Andrew’s father, Avrim Topel, “without having a friend or knowing somebody with a personal contact.” Andrew completed the eight-week internship in July and was invited to return for another summer or to interview for a job after graduation.

I never took on an internship while I attended NYU (and to this day I still haven’t taken on one). I can only assume that these kids are inept at socializing or unwilling to make a concerted effort at taking a real crack at getting into the world of their desired profession. As far as “having friends or knowing somebody with a personal contact”, that’s the entire point of socializing while at school. On my free time outside of the studio, I was working on personal projects and utilizing the assistance and help of people who, in turn, knew other people in higher positions who were willing to bestow upon me resources, advice, and opportunities to showcase my work and ideas. Every pet project since my first attempt while at NYU has grown significantly more ambitious and did not require six months of being the personal assistant (and lap dog) of some overpaid nobody at a corporate office.

With the vast resources of the Internet, I don’t see why anyone would need to pay $8,000 to get an unpaid job for the summer.