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Commentary: Unpaid Internships Not Just For “Wealthy Kids”

This morning as I was doing my usual round of blog reading, one article posted at The Sac Rag caught my attention. Author sac-eats did an excellent job alerting the young public to internship opportunities happening this summer at Sactown Magazine, but one particular bit of side commentary caught my eye:

sac-eats: “I always felt that unpaid internships were just another way that kids from wealthy families got a leg up on everyone else.”

As most of my long-time readers will know, for a brief period last year I had a semester internship with radio station 100.5 The Zone. The experience was rewarding, there was a lot that was learned, and there was no greater pleasure than interacting with all of the listeners who tuned in to the station on a daily basis. The internship was unpaid financially, but it paid off in many, many other ways that I simply wouldn’t have found working a part-time or nine-to-five job at some supermarket or restaurant.

However, make no mistake about it: I am not a wealthy kid, and I do not come from a wealthy family at all. In fact, many people who have been in my shoes did not come from wealthy families when they did their internships. Ask Cambi Brown, who worked at Good Day Sacramento last year as an intern. Cambi will tell you that while taking classes to finish her degree at CSU Sacramento and working an unpaid internship with CBS13 and CW31, she waited tables at a Sacramento restaurant as a way of earning some income.

Or, talk with someone a little more famous—CW31 reporter Alan Sanchez, better known as “Alan The Intern.” He’ll tell you that he sacrificed time and money to get where he is today. Paying for your own gas to travel from the Turlock area to Sacramento isn’t an easy, or affordable, task. Alan is an example of someone who came from a poor side of town, essentially being nobody in everyone’s eyes, and made something of himself. His hard work, both as an unpaid and “slighty-paid” intern, led him to where he is today.

While Alan decided to stay with the company he started with, Cambi has moved on to bigger shoes—going from one CBS13 to another as a web journalist for KSWT in Yuma, Arizona. All three of us made something of ourselves by hard work, dedication and sacrifice, NOT by the amount of money in the family bank account. Truth be told, had it not been for the opportunity and richness in experience that unpaid internships delivered to us, we probably would not have gotten a leg to stand on at all. We saw an opportunity to better ourselves and we took it, no matter what the cost.

I’m picking on media and journalism because that’s the example presented in the Sac Rag article, but the truth of the matter is that unpaid internships come in many different fields of work—from the judicial field to business, medical and beyond. The stereotype that unpaid internships enrich the lives of wealthy college students is insulting when presented with the evidence that it matters not how much money a person has, but rather the content of their work and their character. However, I suppose being an intern is one of those things that you really don’t understand until you’ve been in that position yourself.