There’s a crucial turning point in every student’s
life. It hits around 3 a.m., eight pages into a 15-page paper, or
when you’ve finally found the results to a lab experiment
that took four times longer than it should have. It suddenly occurs
to you: “How much longer till I get paid for this?”
That’s when an internship starts to sound like a pretty
sweet ticket. It gives you the opportunity to parlay academic
skills into money-making skills. At the very least, it reasserts
that there’s a comfortable future that’s worth the
struggle. At its best, a good internship provides the experience
and connections to make that future a reality.
But students would also benefit from being more critical of what
type of experience an internship provides. A lot of listings posted
for UCLA students on the internship section of the MyUCLA Web page
have strikingly vague descriptions. A Warner Brothers marketing
internship, for example, says that students will “assist in
the day-to-day assignments of the marketing department.” This
could mean anything from giving foot rubs to actually designing
presentations or interacting with potential clients.
Chances are, the more vague the description, the more
uninteresting the work. Internships at entertainment companies and
advertising firms in particular don’t necessarily provide the
first-hand experience of the profession.
So why wait for someone to tell you what skills you can or
cannot develop?
If you’re excited about a career in music, why not come up
with a business plan to sell music in the new digital age? If
you’re interested in marketing, why not find people with a
new product and do marketing services for them for free? If the
product starts selling, guess what, you’ve got a career. If
you’re interested in politics, why not start an interest
group that supports an important cause, or a worthy politician? If
the group rallies people to a cause, you’ll get noticed.
At least then you’ll be experiencing first-hand the type
of work you’re interested in, instead of waiting for someone
to spoon some responsibility your way.
Obviously, it’s one thing to talk about starting your own
business and it’s another thing to make it happen. Creating
your own opportunities is a much harder task than getting an
internship, and failure is definitely part of the process. But even
if your project goes down the tubes, future employers will
appreciate your initiative and respect the fact that you dared to
fail and learn from your mistakes.
But internships are about more than just getting experience.
They can be about connections, starting with menial tasks, meeting
the right people, and then working your way up. This is
particularly the case in the ultra-competitive entertainment
industry. Many entertainment internships don’t even pretend
to offer anything more than clerical work. Instead, they suggest
interns will get the chance to network.
Internships in law firms, laboratories and hospitals can give
graduate school applicants important recommendations. Impressing
people who can provide you opportunities is never a bad idea. But
how many unpaid hours do you have to work before you’re
guaranteed a good recommendation? When you rely solely on other
people to get you a job or to write a raving recommendation, you
take a passive role in your own future. Employers and graduate
schools care about more than who you know ““ they want to see
what you’ve done.
To their credit, internships can provide inspiration and the
knowledge-base for start-up projects. It’s also true that
going into an internship with a good attitude can make all the
difference. The more time and energy you put in to an internship,
the more valuable it becomes. Matt David, a third-year business
economics student, interned for Morgan Stanley last summer helping
to create financial portfolios for large real estate deals. By the
end of 12 weeks, David had become an integral part of the real
estate process, organizing initial surveys of incoming accounts
before the bankers made a final decision.
“I would be there as many as 75 hours a week, but I never
felt like I was wasting my time. Yeah, I could go home, but if I
went home I wouldn’t see how this one part I’d been
working on all day got finished. I’d be missing
out.”
But the fact remains that internship opportunities hold an
unfair power over students. We assume that the only way to make it
is to pay our dues, to work long hours doing menial tasks for
little to no pay. But we should have the right to be selfish when
it comes to unpaid labor.
If the internship doesn’t provide the type of experience
you’re looking for, forget about it. It’s not the only
way to success. Creating your own opportunities might just be the
best way to turn an academic passion into a lucrative career.
E-mail Macdonald at jmacdonald@media.ucla.edu.