Unrewarding Internships

Some colleges now close dorm doors as early as the end of April, the first week of May, giving rise to the joke among the tuition-paying generation that the more school costs, the less it's in session. Weren't we playing Frisbee on the quad in June, or catching late spring rays with tin-foil reflectors on the roof while we avoided studying for finals?

By June, today's college students have, locust-like, devastated the larder and racked up a small fortune in late charges at the local video store.

Whatever.

The real problem with early dismissal is that it gives children less time to get their summer plans in order. Or, as is frequently the case, less time for parents to nudge their children into getting plans in place. Or, as is unfortunately more frequently the case, there is now less time for parents to arrange their children's summer plans.

Summer plans used to mean a summer job. If parents did get involved, they might ask someone they knew in the community to get their college-age child work as a lifeguard at the local pool, a place on a maintenance crew, or a job shelving books in the local library. The point was to make money to help defray the cost of books and pizza during the school year.

Now, it's more than likely that parents will call in chits from friends or business associates so that their child can work for nothing.

These paycheck-less positions are called internships and they have become so popular, there are books, newsletters, and Web sites devoted to advising children how to get jobs that might look good on paper but generate no paper currency. Descriptions of the internships are designed to appear in bold on college or graduate school applications, or, perhaps, on a resume after graduation. In the best possible scenario an internship can be point of entry into a real job with real pay someday.

According to Vault Incorporated, a career-counseling company specializing in providing information on internships and other pre-job placements services, Upward of 80% of graduating college seniors have done a paid or unpaid internship, compared with 60% 10 years ago.

This trend is troubling.

Most troubling is that parents might be tempted to use their own connections to get their offspring non-jobs. The use of connections to get a job is hardly new and hardly un-American. Remember Meyer Wolfsheim asking Nick if he were looking for a "business gonnegtion" in The Great Gatsby? In fact, that great American novel is all about connections on the road to success.

But connections can also disconnect a teen or adult child from a sense of his or her own accomplishment. When parents arrange for their teenage-and-beyond offspring, for whom they are paying double-digit dollars in tuition, to go to work for nothing, it may make the kids feel like, well, nothing.

Most developmental psychologists agree that getting paid has its owns rewards - a sense of mastery and competence for the kids and the experience of being responsible to neutral adults. A weekly paycheck is its own form of accountability. "Good job," from a parent's friend or business colleague, or even a letter of reference at the end of a summer stint, does not pack the same punch to the ego.

Even when parents do not connect the dots for their kids, the popularity of unpaid internships is more disturbing than the digital divide that separates the have-laptops from the have-nots.

Unpaid internships are undemocratic. Only the wealthiest kids can afford to spend their three-month summer break working for nothing. According to a research report by the National Association of Colleges and Employers, last year almost 40% of interns in major companies got a job in that company after graduation. A portion of the internships was paid, but many were not.

Unpaid internships are concentrated in the glamour industries like politics, publishing, and entertainment. If internships do give kids an edge in getting a job after graduation, those fields are likely to be filled by an elite group who never had to work for a living while studying.

Internships seem like such a good thing on paper. Beware that they can undermine a student's sense of self-worth - as well as limit social mobility.

Ms. Bailey is a writer and therapist in New York. She can be reached at ebailey@nysun.com.