My sister is offering an internship at her company. The internship is not going to be one of those unpaid ones for two reasons:
1. Exploiting labor is wrong (she’s my sister, eh?)
2. She doesn’t need workers who are so easy in their circumstances that they can afford unpaid internships. Spoiled people don’t make for good employees.
Moral of the story: running a successful business is not predicated on being a jerk.
It filters out the people who would value their skills at zero.
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I think it’s a good thing because if people think their time and labor are worth zero, they are not likely to be very useful in the workforce. Psychological problems of this kind should be solved elsewhere.
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Of course people who outright state,”My labor and work aren’t worth anything” have psychological problems.
It is funny to watch people who endlessly generalize about the entitlement and terrible work ethic of X group as a reason to not pay or pay less get exactly what they expect from those employees.
Appropriate pay definitely cuts down on the “sulky child/nagging mommy” dynamic. What is is about so many employers that makes them want to recreate this in the workforce?
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“Appropriate pay definitely cuts down on the “sulky child/nagging mommy” dynamic.”
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Out of curiosity, what do you think of internships in exchange for course credit? I don’t personally have a problem with it as I consider granting course credit a type of payment. But I am curious about your thoughts.
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You are scaring me out because I was just thinking about it because I saw a commercial for the University of Phoenix that offers course credit for “relevant work experience.” I’m bothered by this development where course credit is handed out for anything but actual learning. There was also an article in Inside Higher Ed yesterday that advocated granting course credit for idiotic things like “projects”, “experiential learning”, etc. Our students need more coursework, not less. I’m afraid that these diploma mills will start handing out college degrees for all kinds of irrelevant stuff. Working a shift at McDonald’s can easily be counted as taking a course in Organizational Leadership. Posting on Facebook can be considered an equivalent to a course in Mass Communication, etc.
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When you put it that way, it’s scary. I guess I was thinking about really specific things like student teaching. But I agree that course credit needs to be zealously guarded and not granted willy nilly.
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A conservative literary critic and college professor
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