Ross Perlin, author of the recently-published book “Intern Nation,” said in an email to The Badger Herald internships are a “virtual requirement” in today’s job market, a trend that began in the ’80s and has been growing ever since. He argues the system, although it has some positive aspects, is no longer working.

Perlin describes a trend in which interns are no longer being financially compensated for their work, a trend he said has worsened since the financial crisis of 2008. Perlin said about one-third to one-half of all internships are unpaid.

“The recession since 2008 has only made things worse: Paid internships have become unpaid, unpaid interns have advanced at the expense of regular entry-level jobs and new groups are turning to internships (recent graduates, people in their 30s or 40s switching careers, high school students) with a desperation that employers are taking advantage of,” Perlin said.

According to Perlin, colleges usually ensure internships are educationally beneficial to students but added the growth of the internship process in general has led to colleges becoming “complicit” in the unpaid internship system. Perlin said colleges may do this by posting illegal internships, making internships a requirement and charging students for academic credit gained at unpaid internships.

Stephanie Salazar Kann, an internship coordinator at the U. Wisconsin College of Letters and Science, said while unpaid internships may pose a financial strain on students, they can be of value to students and should therefore not be ruled out by some students.

“Just because an internship is not paid does not mean it is not a quality experience, and I think that is something that oftentimes gets overlooked,” Salazar Kann said.

Salazar Kann added that although some internships do not give a direct wage to students, they might provide alternate forms of compensation for students. Some examples are payment for housing costs as well as providing transportation passes, which allow students to live in more economical areas of cities than the areas in which the companies are based.

A 2010 letter to U.S. Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis from 13 college presidents around the nation, including UW System President Kevin Reilly, demonstrates the complexity of the issue. The letter urged the federal government to not regulate student internships, as the presidents were afraid employers would no longer offer these opportunities.

“We are troubled by the Department of Labor’s apparent recent shift toward the regulation of internships,” the letter read. “While we share your concerns about the potential for exploitation, our institutions take great pains to ensure students are placed in secure and productive environments that further their education.”

The letter was in response to the guidelines the DOL released in April 2010 defining what is legally considered to be an unpaid internship in the for-profit private sector. If at least one of these criteria does not apply, the student is therefore legally an employee and is entitled to wages under the Fair Labor Standards Act.

According to Perlin, a student who feels the law has been violated can file a DOL complaint or file a lawsuit, which he said “takes bravery and patience.” However, he said the interns are responsible for complaints or lawsuits as there is “generally no active enforcement of the law” by state or federal branches of the DOL, such as the Wisconsin Department of Workforce Development or the federal DOL Wages and Hours Division.

The law is established on a case-by-case basis, according to John Dipko, spokesperson for the DWD. If someone feels an internship has violated the law, they can contact the DWD, which Dipko said has not happened in more than 10 years. Dipko attributed the lack of complaints at the DWD to students going directly into court or students filing complains to the WHD instead of the DWD so that the WHD could investigate the issue.

According to Dipko, an internship that requires a student to receive academic credit is legal.

However, Robert Schwoch, adviser at the UW School of Journalism and Mass Communication, said students often have to pay for the credit and therefore pay for interning. Schwoch, who also is an adviser to The Badger Herald’s board of directors, said many students might not be able to complete their desired internship due to financial constraints.

Salazar Kann said there is sometimes financial aid for students in order to alleviate some of the financial concerns of taking an internship that requires academic credit. Students may apply for financial aid to help pay for the credit, and there is also a Letters and Sciences internship scholarship available in the summer to sophomores and juniors that comes from UW alumni, ranging from $2,000 to $5,000.

The internship search provides a chance for students to evaluate their abilities as well as circumstances, Salazar Kann said. For example, a student should determine whether they need to be based in Madison, whether they would like a full-time internship and other parameters they should first consider in their search.

“[The search] comes down to students knowing themselves and what is feasible for them. It is a unique time for students to think about their circumstances and aspirations,” Salazar Kann said.

Salazar Kann added students should reach out to their school or college to find internships that are best fit for them, adding that the Buckynet online recruiting system is a great resource for students. She said internships are not the only way to gain experience and develop critical skills for their future, and she, as well as other university career service personnel, works with students to find an alternative method that might better fit them.

According to Schwoch, employers might not be fully aware of the financial problems student may face with unpaid internships, especially those that require academic credit. For this reason, Schwoch advises students to communicate with their employers “very politely” regarding whether there would be any sort of compensation, such as the employer paying for the student’s tuition.

Perlin said although the internship process has various “competing interests,” the last section of his book focuses on solutions he would like to see implemented.

“Students and interns should know and demand their rights. Colleges should look out for their students’ interests,” Perlin said. “Employers should take the longer view, understanding internships as an investment in the next generation and knowing that the way to get the best candidates and turn them into the best employees is through internships that pay a living wage and provide real training.”

What sets students apart from their peers in the current seemingly impenetrable job market? The answer is internships.

A 2010 study by the National Association of Colleges and Employers found that 42.3 percent of the seniors who had internship experience and applied for a job received at least one job offer, while only 30.7 percent of seniors without internship experience who applied for a job received an offer.

Various universities have realized the importance of internship experience and have taken serious initiatives to motivate students to intern. Some universities have even made internship experience a graduation requirement for all students. It would seem unfeasible for a large university such as U. Texas to require internship experience among all graduates, but is the University doing enough to promote internship experience and make interning accessible to all students?

Over the last decade, UT developed programs such as the Bill Archer Fellowship Program, where UT students live and intern in Washington, D.C., for a semester while earning in-residence credit, and the UT Semester in Los Angeles Program. Such programs offer students some of the best experiences of their college careers. However, they are limited to only a small number of students per semester.

As paid internships are rare, one of the biggest drawbacks to interning is the lack of pay for students. Many students cannot afford to spend a summer or a semester working for free, as they have tuition and other finances to pay. Although many universities promote the importance of internships, few discuss this critical aspect interning.

One may say that as an intern, a student can earn college credit for their work, which will make up for the lack of pay. Although this may be true for internships during the school year, summer internships are not always counted as course credit. In order for an internship to translate into summer course credit, many students must enroll into the summer session and pay for summer tuition. In other words, some students will work for free and then have to pay almost $2,000 to the University to obtain the credit.

To preach the importance of internships and genuinely promote this experience among students, UT must find a way to bridge the gap between unpaid work and gaining experience. One way to do this is to develop a program where a student receives a salary or even a stipend from the University while working in an unpaid internship. This would truly promote internship experience among students and therefore increase the opportunity of post-graduation employment. However in times such as these, where University funds are short, UT could also allow all summer interns to receive credit without paying the full summer tuition.

These measures are key to promoting internship experience among students. In addition to the natural competitive edge in the job market that comes with being a Longhorn, UT students will gain increased attention from future employers with internship experiences.

Several lawsuits have been recently filed by former interns against Fox Searchlight Pictures and Hearst Publishing, citing laws governing unpaid internships under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA).

According to the FLSA, for an unpaid internship to be legal, an internship must be for the benefit of the intern and be similar to training that would be given in an educational environment, among other regulations. Dates for the trials have not been set.

Alex Footman, a documentary filmmaker, is a plaintiff in the lawsuit filed against Fox Searchlight in September. Footman said he worked as a production intern during the making of the film “Black Swan” after graduating from Wesleyan University. Eric Glatt is the other plaintiff in the lawsuit. However, Fox Searchlight disputes their employment claims.

Footman said he and other employees were taken advantage of as free labor for the studio.

“We weren’t there to learn anything,” Footman told the Lariat. “They just needed people to do stuff they needed done.”

In defense, Fox Searchlight said Footman and Glatt worked on the film for another production company before Fox Searchlight purchased it.

“These individuals were never employed as interns or retained in any capacity by Fox Searchlight, which has a proud history of supporting and fostering productive internships,” Fox Searchlight said in a statement printed by Reuters. “We look forward to aggressively fighting these groundless, opportunistic accusations.”

Footman said he took the internship with the promise of making connections with important people in the industry and learning what it was like to produce a film. Instead, he said he researched hotels for the cast and crew, shopped online for items for the film, made coffee, took out the trash, picked up lunch and filed papers.

Footman said performing these tasks without pay violates the internship portion of the FLSA. It says an internship is to be “similar to training which would be given in an educational environment,” “for the benefit of the intern” and “the employer that provides the training derives no immediate advantage from the activities of the intern,” among other regulations.

Footman said the tasks he did for Fox Searchlight were not of any benefit to him, but rather benefited his employer and, without interns, would have been performed by paid staff.

“You hear so little about this issue because people are worried about being seen as greedy or entitled,” Footman said.

Footman said he and another intern thought what Fox Searchlight asked them to do was illegal and decided to file a lawsuit. Footman said it is a slow process, but he felt it was the right thing to do. Back wages are a part of the lawsuit, he said, but obtaining money is not the objective.

“We want to bring publicity to this issue and get Fox Searchlight to say that it was wrong,” Footman said.

Footman is not alone in his criticism of unpaid internships.

After his own unpaid internship experience, Ross Perlin researched and wrote the book “Intern Nation,” which was released in May 2011.

He said there are up to two million internships in the United States every year, and almost half are unpaid. Thousands of these unpaid internships are also illegal, he said, a conclusion he based on his research.

“[My experience] wasn’t horrible or exploitative like some internships are, but after awhile, the sheer fact of working hundreds of hours unpaid doing core work for the organization made me start to question the whole arrangement,” Perlin said.

But he also said he realized many student interns may not be as fortunate as he was.

“It’s also very common for interns to be given tasks that they didn’t sign up for, or for an internship not to fit the original description — a kind of bait-and-switch,” he said.

David Lat, a lawyer familiar with the Fox Searchlight and Hearst lawsuits, wrote a column in favor of unpaid internships for The New York Times.

Lat had two different unpaid internships he said were beneficial to his life and career, despite the lack of pay.

“I did not feel in either of my internships I was exploited in any way,” Lat told the Lariat. “They gave me growth experience and excellent leadership opportunities.”

While Lat recognized some unpaid interns are exploited, he said the burden rests on students to protect themselves.

“To the extent that you can, try to learn about the intern program and figure out if it is a program that provides people with a great experience,” he said.

Lat also said students need to be aware of their legal rights, including the fact that, as unpaid staff, they are not protected by the same rights as paid employees.

Perlin also raised this issue and said that law does not protect unpaid interns from sexual harassment and racial discrimination, though these kinds of abuse are rare among interns.

Kevin Nall, associate director of Career Services at Baylor U., said the number of unpaid internships varies between industries.

He said if a business offers an unpaid internship, it will usually require credit to be granted from an institution of higher learning.

“There seems to be a different mindset from one industry to another,” Nall said.

He said most companies in finance, accounting, professional selling and other business occupations almost always offer paid internships, while media and entertainment companies usually do not.

There are differing ideas on what should be done to combat the exploitation of unpaid interns. Lat said students should be aware of their rights and laws about internships and that government enforcement is unlikely and not practical.

“There are limited government resources,” Lat said. “They can’t go after every case.”

Footman said students shouldn’t be scared to speak out if they feel they are being exploited and hopes his lawsuit is encouraging to others in similar situations.

Perlin said students need to be aware, but he also put the responsibility on universities to examine the internships their students are getting.

Baylor is making an effort, Nall said, to better monitor student internships, especially those for class credit.

Students are encouraged to check in with a faculty member during their internships.

“Internships exist to add an experiential component to education,” Nall said.

“Learning that takes place in a work setting can serve as an effective bridge from college to career,” he said.

In many fields, paid employment is becoming increasingly scarce for college students and recent graduates, while unpaid internships are becoming all the more appealing for students looking to supplement their resumes with work experience.

Though this system may sound like a win-win for employers and college students, a growing trend of internships that violate labor laws have some interns fighting back. For instance, Xuedan Wang, a former intern at Hearst Corporation, is looking to file a class-action lawsuit against companies that abuse the system, using unpaid interns to do the work of paid employees.

This is a positive step toward ensuring that businesses do not take advantage of their young interns, many of whom would jump at the chance to fetch coffee or file paperwork if it would increase their chances of landing a paying job in the industry later on.

The UCLA Career Center is aware of the growing problem of illegal unpaid internships, according to Anthony Bediones, a peer advisor at the Career Center and fourth-year communications studies student.

Bediones said the Career Center audits companies looking to list their internship opportunities with UCLA in order to make sure that the positions they offer are legitimate.

However, students looking for internships elsewhere may find them to be less than ideal. The U.S. government can do more to clarify the Department of Labor’s rules, which are ambiguous and hard to enforce, and to stop businesses from trying to circumvent the true purpose of an internship.

The Wage and Hour Division of the Labor Department currently has a six-point test to determine whether an unpaid internship is legal, and after reviewing these standards it becomes clear that there are some blatant offenders.

For one, interns have to be the main beneficiary of their internship, and receive the same type of training that they would receive at a vocational school in their field. In reality, many interns spend their days running errands or doing other menial tasks, hardly activities that companies could claim to be educational.

Though UCLA graduate business student Aditya Khargonekar has had positive experiences during his several paid and unpaid internships, he said unpaid internships are generally less structured because employers are less invested, meaning the interns must be more proactive. Khargonekar said that as long as people are willing to participate in subpar internships, employers have the upper hand.

Another requirement for unpaid internships is that employers must receive no “immediate advantage” from the actions of the intern, and they also cannot use interns in the place of paid workers. Not only is it unclear what constitutes an “immediate advantage,” but it is unlikely that most businesses trying to turn a profit take on interns for the altruistic purpose of training and educating them, without receiving any benefit of their own.

But if these employers are receiving free labor from desperate college students, why do so few of the interns speak out against them? The problem lies in the hyper competitiveness of the workforce among recent college graduates, who find that they need experience for even an entry-level job.

The current situation recalls a time before minimum-wage laws were instituted, when there was so much available labor that big businesses could drop wages as low as they pleased and still have people willing to work. Of course, answering telephones or sorting mail does not compare to working in coal mines or meat-packing factories, but the same principle of fair pay for labor is still being violated.

If the Department of Labor starts to strictly enforce their standards, students will stop feeling that working for free is now a necessity to getting ahead in the future. A study from the Economic Policy Institute proposes reforming the current six-point standards to a simpler test in which the cost of taking on an intern to an employer is compared to the benefit of taking on an intern to an employer.

If the employer reaps more rewards as compared to its costs, then the intern is not receiving a fair benefit and should be compensated. Hopefully, the result of more enforcement will lead to fewer unpaid internships and more paid internships, or at least improve the quality of training provided to unpaid interns by employers.

As it stands now, unpaid internships are only an option for students who can afford to take a summer off of paid work, so many lower-income students miss out on an opportunity to gain experience in their desired field.

While paying interns or providing genuine instruction requires companies to sacrifice a little more money, that is the law. The Department of Labor should step up enforcement and consider altering their standards to more easily protect unpaid interns. Just because students will work for free does not mean they should have to.

With more students in college and more competition for positions, this has become the time of year for students to line up to apply for internships, jobs or studying opportunities for the upcoming spring, summer and fall. Today, in order to get the job or internship you desire, whether you are graduating or just filling time between school sessions, you need to apply early and often.

In a limping economy, many students and recent graduates hope to find jobs or internships to supplement their income and help put a dent in the financial burden associated with attending a university. But many employers are unwilling to hire inexperienced young workers, or claim they cannot afford to add another name to their payroll.

So many then opt for the unpaid internship, in which young interns are not financially rewarded for their work but are paid in experience, or even class credit, with the possibility of being hired after the internship is complete. In essence, these companies and organizations are getting free labor.

With paid internships and entry-level jobs at a minimum, many students and recent grads are forced into taking these positions, hoping to advance on to full employment but receiving no guarantees for months at a time. Not only can this be frustrating, as many students and young adults would prefer not to be a full-time volunteer, but it can also greatly hinder the development of those involved. Many are forced to put off beginning a career or even living on their own as their financial needs cannot be met by unpaid or low-paying internships and entry-level jobs.

There are well-paying opportunities out there, however. The MECOP/CECOP program ran through Oregon State, Portland State and OIT offers the chance for engineering students to work full-time at a company while receiving full pay and benefits.

While it occupies two terms of school, forcing participants to graduate late, the experience and the handsome paycheck offset any harsh side effects this may create. Students get the whole employee experience for six months while furthering their education through hands-on training, and in return actually get paid for their contributions. This unique blend of public education, private industry and the engineering profession is unfortunately quite rare.

Of course, internships and jobs are available for other disciplines, but not to the great extent as those for engineering. Obviously the dearth of job opportunities for non-engineers may contribute to this, but paid internships for any academic discipline should not be a foreign concept.

Unpaid internships can be helpful in gaining experience, but they should only be used when in conjunction with academic courses or in a part-time setting. A part-time internship used as part of an educational curriculum could be mutually beneficial for the student and organization involved. The student gets to work in a setting related to their field as part of their academic course, and the organization gets assistance and training for future professionals.

But relying on an unpaid internship as the only source of experience or employment would be both ineffective and financially immature. As a standalone endeavor, the unpaid internship relies only on intrinsic motivation, meaning that unless you truly love it and are already in a somewhat financially stable situation, your rewards may be severely lacking.

As more students attempt to enter the workplace, and the lack of quality paying jobs and internships becomes evident, the use of unpaid work needs to be examined. Using the promise of experience and the possibility of promotion, many organizations are able to get young workers to contribute without compensation. And while gaining experience and making connections can be a valuable tool for a young worker, receiving proper compensation for work is pretty valuable too.

This is the predicament I found myself in last year. Ever since I was young, I dreamed about working for the E! Network. Then in April 2011, I was offered the chance to intern at E! Online for the entire summer in LA.

When I first found out I got the internship, I was so excited I cried tears of joy (yes, real tears). After calling my parents, those tears became ones of stress and sadness.

“I’m excited for you, but you can’t afford to go to LA for the summer,” my mom said.

“Where are you going to live? How are you going to pay for an apartment? How are you going to pay for food?” my dad asked.

I was annoyed that they couldn’t be happy for me and excited that my dreams were coming true, but I also knew they were right. It’s not like I had a bunch of money lying around that I could use. After all, I’m a college student.

I was in a dilemma. Not knowing what to do, I turned to the best method to make a tough decision: a pros and cons list.

Pros:

• Working for my dream company
• Working for one of the most well-respected companies in entertainment
• Getting amazing experience
• Living in a different city
• Meeting people who could catapult my career
• Getting a taste of the lifestyle I’ve always wanted

Cons:

• Not knowing how to get the money to live in LA
• Being far away from friends and family
• Not knowing anyone in LA
• Going into debt

After looking over my list I knew there was no question: I had to take the internship. I did everything I could to figure out how I was going to make it work.

Luckily, I was able to get a loan as well as a part-time job in LA. I searched endlessly and found a safe place to live and a roommate.

On May 16, 2011, I started my first day at E! Online.The experience I earned there is irreplaceable. Not only did I learn how the entertainment news business works and meet amazing people that gave me great advice for my future career, but I also learned a lot about myself.

I may owe more than I would have if I interned somewhere closer to home, but what’s a couple thousand dollars more to my already large heap of college loans? I look at it as an investment in my future.

And that’s my advice to you. No matter what field you’re going into, experience is the best thing to have. It can make or break your chances at getting a good job right out of college.

So take a chance. No matter how far of a stretch it may be or how hopeless it may seem, if you try hard enough, you can always find a way.

It my not be ideal to work your butt off for free, but trust me — in the long run, the money you could have made is nothing compared to the experience you will gain.

For already broke college students, spending a semester at an unpaid internship is difficult to accept. How can companies expect students to have the ability or desire to give up an income for such a significant amount of time?

These situations cause some to wonder if the companies that offer internships are taking advantage of students’ desperateness for experience by refusing to pay for their labor or if they are instead doing students a favor by taking them in and grooming them for a future career. While I like to think it’s the latter, future interns need to realize that these companies aren’t completely selfless. Employers might welcome interns to avoid expenses for payroll and benefits that they would have to provide for actual employees. Meanwhile, the companies pass internships off as a necessary experience for students.

But the high learning potential, connections and resumé benefits that internships offer make the free labor worthwhile. Prospective employees need such experience to compete in the job market. Suffering a little now will pay off later when sights are set on a real paying job.

Some companies, fair or not, pressure interns into performing menial tasks and jumping through hoops. Students will do whatever they’re told to reach star intern status. However, while many interns are eventually hired by the companies they intern for, that’s not always the case, no matter how many hoops they jumped through.

This shouldn’t discourage anyone from performing their best and impressing their employer, though. The company might have a job opening in the future that would be a perfect fit. At the very least, if interns impress they can earn an influential letter of recommendation.

It’s never too early to begin the search for an internship. Sometimes, earlier is even better. As a sophomore, I have applied to positions for the upcoming summer. Because I am still in school, I don’t need to stress about being offered a job when I am finished. I am solely looking for a place to contribute the skills I already have while learning new ones. In other words, I want experience. I recognize it as something valuable for my future.

While the internship system is not without flaws, most positions do have the potential to turn out more highly skilled, professional and experienced interns.

If a student receives an internship in an industry they are excited about, it should feel less like a missed opportunity to make bank and more like an opportunity to grow.

Department of Labor regulations under the Fair Labor Standards Act state that all internships in the “for-profit” sector will usually be considered employment (subject to minimum wage laws) unless they meet specific guidelines. These guidelines that allow unpaid internships discuss the training benefits interns gain from their experience and specify that the internship is for the intern’s advantage, not the employer’s.

Maybe it’s desperate or even a little demeaning, but I am willing to deal with the flaws, work my hardest and fetch everyone in the office their iced mocha lattes if doing so brings me closer to my dream job. Is that silly? Maybe, but I’d rather be silly now and secure later.

One Heart Source — a non-profit organization dedicated to teaching HIV awareness in the country — aims to eradicate that problem. One Heart Source, created in 2008 by UCLA graduate students Jessica Gu and Hori Moroaica, is also under the HIV Prevention Club on campus. Volunteers from the organization, such as parks, recreation and tourism sophomore Kendra Reay, teach basic education and HIV prevention to Tanzanian children.

One Heart Source volunteers stay in a home stay, a Tanzanian family’s home, when they go to the country.

Reay said when she worked with One Heart Source in Tanzania last year, she saw how families were separated by work structures.

“I only met the father of my home stay once throughout my whole trip because he was a civil engineer and had to work further away from the village his family is living in,” Reay said.

In Tanzania, an eastern African country, nearly half of approximately 2.4 million orphans were orphaned as a result of the AIDS epidemic.

Tanzania, a country where more than half of the population lives on less than a dollar a day, has a culture unlike America’s, Reay said. Mud huts are common structures for houses, and a wealthy family would have land to grow their own crops or raise animals such as chickens and cows.

Chai tea is traditionally served as breakfast, while lunch and dinner usually consist of a type of bread known as chapatti, rice and beans. Fruits and vegetables such as corn, bananas, oranges and avocados are main staples in the Tanzanian diet, Reay said.

Eric Jorgensen, a materials engineering senior, had never experienced the Tanzanian diet before his One Heart Source trip.

“I’ve never really been to a Third World country and seen poverty on that level,” Jorgensen said. “You just get so completely immersed in a culture so different from us with mud huts, no television, no electricity. You experience different things like getting water from the well.”

Another “different thing” volunteers such as Jorgensen encounter on their trips is the taboo nature of AIDS and HIV in cultures like Tanzania. Contraceptives such as condoms are believed to be improper and a waste of sperm; therefore, they are not used as often as they should be. One Heart Source teaches that condoms are effective in preventing conception and the sexual transmission of infections, including HIV.

Talia Borgo, a kinesiology sophomore, is a coordinator for One Heart Source who plays an active role in choosing and teaching applicants.

“We teach basic hygienic and sexual education, including the ‘ABC’ curriculum,” Borgo said. “‘A’ for abstinence, ‘B’ for being faithful and ‘C’ for condoms.”

Methods like the ‘ABC’ curriculum help to curb rumors, such as that condoms have HIV in them, Borgo said.

Reay, who will volunteer in Tanzania again this summer, communicated to her host family through hand and body gestures.

One Heart Source volunteers go through pre-field training before going on their  four-week or eight-week programs in Tanzania. In the training, they learn the curriculum to teach the children in Tanzania, and how to get their message across through sentence-by-sentence translation by a Tanzanian translator in the classroom, Reay said.

Through posters and various comprehensive games, volunteers try to remove the stigma children have regarding HIV, including the spread of the disease through playing or touching someone. Volunteers teach different curriculum depending on the age group they are assigned to, Reay said.

For children below eighth grade, volunteers usually tutor English and math because they are too young to understand the concepts of HIV. Children from eighth grade through high school are educated about the biology of human cells, transmission of HIV infections and ways to prevent transmission, Reay said.

Jorgensen, who is also a project manager for One Heart Source, said pre-field training is important to prepare volunteers for their trip.

Basic Swahili, which is the national African Bantu language, is also taught to volunteers, Jorgensen said.

There is a program fee of approximately $2,200 or $3,200, depending on whether a volunteer chooses to stay for four weeks or eight weeks. It covers the expenses of transportation to and from the airport and home stays, but flight expenses are separate. Fundraising regularly helps volunteers fund their trips, Jorgensen said.

Borgo lived in a home stay in the Maasai tribe of Tanzania. Preparing to return this summer to volunteer again, Borgo was unable to forget the last night she had in Tanzania when she volunteered last year.

“In the Maasai tribe, women weren’t supposed to show any emotional expression,” Borgo said. “On that last night, Mama had to pull me back in the backyard, to tell me that she loved me through tears, which brought me to tears, too.”

Since 1961, the Peace Corps has sent more than 200,000 volunteers to 139 countries to spread peace and friendship. IU ranks 23rd among large colleges and universities for producing the most current Peace Corps volunteers, according to an annual rankings press release. These Hoosiers are part of the IU Returned Peace Corps Volunteers, a group focused on promoting the third goal of the Peace Corps: to strengthen Americans’ understanding about the world and its people.

Abbie Hantgan
Mali, West Africa
January 1998 through June 2001
Ph.D candidate in African linguistics

Abbie Hantgan intended to spend the normal two years as a Peace Corps volunteer in Mali, West Africa, but ended up extending her stay for a total of three-and-a-half years.
“After two years, I finally had learned the language and the culture. I finally learned how to live there, so why leave?” she said.

After graduating from Warren Wilson College in North Carolina in 1996, Hantgan began to research programs and decided on the Peace Corps for a variety of reasons.

“I went to Cameroon in college for a service project and wanted to go back. I was looking for a program that had some financial support, and I was also thinking about health care,” she said. “I had a little knowledge of French, so West Africa was a great fit.”

Hantgan spent her time in the village of Koira Beirier teaching a women’s group to read and write.

“I worked with a literacy instructor and an organization called the Near East Foundation to teach the women’s collective to read and write in a Dogon language, but there are about 18 Dogon languages,” she said. “While they learned Najamba, which they do speak, their own language is Kindige.”

Literacy materials are now being made for the teaching of Kindige, she said.

Hantgan has returned to West Africa three times since her time with Peace Corps.
She spent summer 2008 and summer 2009 in West Africa and recently returned from a six-month stint there. Each time, she has continued teaching literacy.

“I began also working on another thought-to-be Dogon language, Bangime, which turns out to be completely unrelated, though the people live among the Dogon.”

Hantgan is currently a Ph.D. candidate at IU in African linguistics and said she hopes to complete her dissertation by next May.

“I just got back from doing this research and have been wanting to spread the word,” she said.

Shan Weatherbee
Kachiry, Kazakhstan
June 2004 through July 2006

Shan Weatherbee spent his two Peace Corps years as a volunteer on the edge of southern Siberia in the village of Kachiry, Kazakhstan, teaching English to primary and secondary school students.

He said learning the native language and communicating was probably the hardest part, as it probably is for most volunteers.

“I didn’t know the language or culture, so communication was pretty hard, but you get a hold of it after about six months or the first year,” he said.

Weatherbee spent his first year living with a host family but lived on his own the second year in the back rooms of a house that was shared by a woman and her son who lived in the front.

“It was a little better to be living on my own just because it gave me more independence,” he said.

While on his own, Weatherbee had to keep his rooms warm by buying coal and wood.
“It was a pretty life-changing experience,” he said. “Living in a different country and seeing what problems people have to deal with that we take for granted, like the coal for keeping warm. The whole experience was great and a real eye-opener.”

Kate Slavens
Mali, West Africa
July 2007 through July 2009
Master’s student in SPEA

After finishing her undergraduate studies and graduating in May 2007, Kate Slavens said she decided to spend two years in Mali, West Africa, in the village of Senossa with a population of about 3,500.

Slavens focused on general health and sanitation there by holding workshops and presentations for the community.

“We did weekly baby weigh-ins and also did demonstrations for mothers about how to make a more nutritious and substantive porridge,” she said.

Slavens said she had always thought about being a Peace Corps volunteer.
“I’ve always been interested in new countries, new cultures and new languages,” she said.

While Slavens majored in French at University of Evansville, a prominently spoken language in West Africa, as an undergraduate, she still had to deal with the language barrier of the local dialect, Fulani.

The first nine weeks of her stay were spent learning the language, Slavens said. Along with Fulani, the training also included health safety.

“There was a lot of training about safety when drinking water and how to cook,” she said. “There were also lots and lots of shots in preparation for the trip.”

Because the days mostly revolved around the sun, Slavens usually began her average routine at sunrise followed by breakfast while listening to BBC radio. After eating lunch with her host family, she would then visit schools or make follow-up visits in the afternoon.

While in Mali, Slavens stayed in regular contact with her family.
“The use of cell phones is growing exponentially, so I actually had a phone. My parents also got a Skype account, too,” she said. “There was also a lot of letter writing.”

Slavens is now at IU, pursuing a master’s in publics affairs with a concentration in nonprofit management.
“It was an amazing experience,” she said. “Everyone was so warm and friendly.”

The report challenges the presumed need for all young people to go to a four-year college and calls for the development of vocational training for young adults and an increase in career counseling.

“The reason we are failing to prepare so many young people is because we are taking an overly narrow approach to education and youth development,” said William Symonds, project director and primary author of the “Pathways to Prosperity” report.

“While we put a lot of emphasis on sending kids to college, many of them are not successfully completing,” Symonds said.

About 80 percent of freshmen that entered UT in 2004 completed a bachelor’s degree within six years, according to data from the Office of Information Management and Analysis at UT. That number is higher than the national average of 56 percent.

The report challenges the idea that the path to success for young people means attaining a four-year degree, Symonds said.

“We need to offer students multiple pathways to success,” Symonds said. “For some students that would be vocational or career education. We’re suggesting we need to raise the quality.”

Symonds said because of the increasing failure to prepare young people for future success, both high schools and colleges need to put more emphasis on career counseling, helping students decide what they want to do and how to best achieve it.

According to the study, positions that were once suitable for people with a high school diploma or less in 1973 made up 72 percent of the job pool. By 2007, that number had shrunk to 41 percent, with a rising need for workers who have some college experience but not necessarily a degree.

Almost 30 percent of workers with licenses or certificates, which require less education than an associate’s degree, were earning more than people with bachelor’s degrees, according to the report.

Mike Midgley, vice president of instruction at Austin Community College, said many jobs once available directly from high school now have more advanced technical requirements and additional training is required to prepare students.

“What’s driving that shift is this evolving level of technology,” Midgley said. “You are getting into the zone when you simply can’t do these jobs anymore without an ability to work with technology.”

The new Pathways Programs will organize internships for both undergraduate and graduate students, according to an executive order signed by President Barack Obama.

It will replace the current Federal Career Intern Program on March 1, which was often used by agencies to circumvent hiring military veterans, who must be given priority for government jobs.

The executive order says the current federal hiring process discriminates against applicants who do not have previous work experience.

Students in high school, college and graduate school are eligible for these paid internships, as well as students who have graduated within the last two years.

The order also states the new program will help agency employers evaluate students on the job, to see if they will do well in future federal careers.

Jennifer Carignan, a career adviser for the School of Public Affairs, said she isn’t sure yet how the changes will affect American U. students.

“There’s not a whole lot of clarity about what’s going on right now,” she said. “For the most part, a lot of questions are still unanswered.”

She said many American U. students have gone through the Federal Career Intern Program, which many agencies use for entry-level hiring. But the Career Center does not keep track of how many students have gone through this and other federal internship programs.

A December 2005 School of International Service graduate, who declined to be named for this story, was hired through the Federal Career Intern Program in April 2006.

He said he found his current job through the program, working to assist foreign militaries with counterterrorism aid.

“It’s very difficult to get a job at the Department of Defense right out of college,” he said. “If you’re not a veteran of the military, it’s very difficult to get a federal job.”

As an undergrad, he worked for a private sector firm in the Pentagon. He said the people at the Pentagon liked his work and brought him into the Federal Career Intern Program after his graduation.

He was hired directly into his current agency after the intern program ended.

He advises current students to look to consulting and contracting firms that work with the government while the new federal intern programs are still getting set up.

“I thought it was pretty helpful for getting started within government,” he said of his private sector job.

Beaver JobNet allows for students to search for jobs and internships in a broad range of fields, allowing all students equal access to the jobs that are out there. There are certain fields that are more likely to hire unpaid interns or volunteers than others due to the nature of the work.

Adry Clark, assistant director and career counselor for Career Services at OSU, works to connect students with programs and reviews guidelines. Companies contact Clark wanting interns and she helps students better understand their opportunities, hoping to improve the state of internships for students at OSU.

“In order for an unpaid internship to be lawful, the intern must be working for a nonprofit company and there needs to be a lot of guidance and training,” says Clark. “More unpaid internships are arising due to the budget crisis and companies think that they can get someone to work for them for nothing. Scams, commission-based jobs, (and) work from home are all ways that employers are trying to get free labor.”

Clark’s job is to act as a gatekeeper when it comes to unlawful internships, but to also let students know that there are more internships out there than ever before. Students can come to Clark if they feel violated or used in any way while completing an unpaid internship. This will allow Clark to stay informed and better serve students.

“As more internships open up, they see it as an extended interview,” says Clark. “The employer is getting fresh talent, and if it works out, it is the best way to find future employment, which makes the whole experience positive.”

Some fields, like human services, teachers and counselors are more likely to complete field work or shadow someone in order to fully learn the job, an unpaid experience that is invaluable. Clark recommends that students talk to people in the field that they are interested in and conduct informational interviews in order to understand how they got their start, or if starting out with unpaid work is a normal practice for the specific area of interest.

“Business, social media, (and) engineering internships are largely paid positions, so students have a lot of leverage,” says Clark. “Sometimes students are so eager to accept, they forget to inquire about the pay, which is something that students should be assertive about. If the intern contributes and is an asset to the company, they can have a good case as to why they should be paid.”

Internships on campus have been growing over the years, particularly athletic internships. Nikki Pruett, director of promotions and fan development for Oregon State Athletics, enjoys hiring OSU students who are passionate about the athletic department. Athletic interns are each given a book scholarship each term or paid an hourly wage, depending on which department they are hired in, as well as compensated with Nike gear.

“Like other internships, it’s an opportunity to learn about an industry that may be of interest to the intern in the future,” says Pruett. “Each intern is working for people that have worked within this industry and have contacts outside of OSU. If interns do a good job within their department, their supervisors are more than willing to help them, as much as possible, to find a job after they graduate.”

In an article published in April 2010 in the New York Times called, “The Unpaid Intern, Legal or Not,” Steven Greenhouse reported that The Labor Department is “cracking down on firms that fail to pay interns properly and expanding efforts to educate companies, colleges and students on the law regarding internships.”

Greenhouse also reported that officials in Oregon and California have begun investigations and fined employers, increasing enforcement nationwide. If students at OSU are interested in seeking internships for college credit, there is an internship class that must be completed first that is available for almost every major. For more information, talk to your advisor or schedule an appointment at career services by calling 541-737-0519 or visit oregonstate.edu/career.

Filling in data logs, running around D.C. dropping off bank deposits in the dense heat of summer and reorganizing moldy accounting books from the 1980s seemed rather doable, as long as I got my $8-an-hour paycheck at the end of week. But bathroom cleaning was where I drew the line.

Given my summer experience, searching for internships for next spring leaves me with a mixed sense of utter dread and anticipation. Internship shopping seems to boil down to one question: Do I take the unpaid internship knowing I will have to take on another job, or will I risk another fiasco in which “intern” and “in-house maid” are interchangeable?

In April, the New York Times wrote a controversial piece about the legality of hiring unpaid interns for free labor. Soon after, media outlets like the Huffington Post, DCist, and even The Hatchet joined the controversial chorus. Now, five months later, how is GW helping students navigate the 2010-2011 paid and unpaid internship cycle?

When I asked the GW Career Center about its internship policy I received the following statement from Executive Director Marva Gumbs Jennings:

“To provide support to students interested in experience outside the classroom, the GW Career Center serves as a clearinghouse for full-time, part-time, internship and other experiences in the local region and beyond through the GWork database. We allow employers to post their internships in GWork to the attention of GW students providing the latter an opportunity to assess which internship may be best for them.”

The fact that our Career Center simply acts as a “clearinghouse” – impersonally spewing out background checks and crowd-sourced student information about potential employers – is an issue.

The Career Center should be actively rooting for us: blowing horns and holding giant megaphones and foam fingers at every interview.

Our parents may have worked their first jobs for the pay of a McDonald’s hamburger in the 1970s, but it seems fall 2010, D.C. interns are up against something 10 times fiercer than meager wages. We are asked to clean bathroom handles for extremely anal bosses, we stand out in the freezing rain campaigning for money from blasé businessmen, and – fulfilling every intern stereotype – we get coffee for our bosses.

This city runs on interns the way oil tankers run on petroleum, and yet the internship market often seems like open hunting season in a metropolitan jungle. Given these realities, the Career Center should be like a proud parent, the chairman of our personal fan club even, when we apply for internships, instead of leading us astray.

The motif of headlines in Mexican newspapers everyday revolved around findings of mass graves, assassinated politicians, corruption scandals and cartel feuds over territory. But what is this “drug war” really all about? And what are the U.S. and Mexico actually doing to deal with this issue? These questions remained trapped in my head during my three-month stay in Mexico, and the unique experiences I was exposed to slowly peeled away at the systemic and entrenched drug issue in Mexico.

During my second week as an intern, a co-worker told me, “You should start packing because you are going to Ciudad Juarez in two days.” I did not know how to reply to this unappealing invitation. Ciudad Juarez is considered to be the most dangerous city in the world. In this year alone, more than 2,100 people have been killed — a figure that might surpass last year’s death toll of 2,700. As I arrived at Juarez under the burning sun and got into the armored Suburban, I could observe dozens of trucks carrying masked policemen with AK-47s and sub-machine guns. As soon as the voyage began, it became unavoidable to see teenagers standing in the corners of streets with walkie-talkies, and many suspicious cars driving around with pitch-black windows and no license plates.

A month later, I had the opportunity to work for one week along the U.S.-Mexico border in Yuma, Arizona and San Luis Rio, Colorado in the state of Sonora. During my stay between the walls built by President George W. Bush, I was alarmed by the severity of drug, weapon and human trafficking.

For instance, I heard the story of a border patrol agent who saw a car whose passenger’s seat seemed somewhat uneven and shaky. His intuition told him that something was wrong, but the driver at the border checkpoint assured everything was all right. After scanning the vehicle, it was made visible that there was a man knitted inside the car’s seat, a clear victim of human trafficking.

Another story told by a general in the Mexican Army involved a group of unknown men committing killing raids against members of drug cartels. Initially, neither participants of the drug business nor the authorities could guess who was behind these brutal massacres. When the truth came out, it ended up being a group of prisoners who would buy off the guards, use their equipment for their deadly business and return to hide in jail so no one would suspect them. I did not only become aware of the severity of violence through all of these stories, but also through personal experiences.

One night under the pouring rain, I had to get into a cab in order to get home. As soon as I got in, my driver made some phone calls and specified his location and his intended destination. After looking at the taxi’s permit with the driver’s name and photo, I realized that the person driving me was not the person in the ID, and that if I stayed in that cab I was probably going to get kidnapped or assaulted. I quickly told him to drop me off and he showed reluctance to stop the car. Therefore, on the next red light I had to jump out of the cab and sprint as fast as I could.

After all of these experiences, I progressively acquired a thorough understanding of this complex issue and the ways in which it might be tackled. As both presidents Calderon and Obama have stressed, this is a shared problem between the United States of America and the United Mexican States. The U.S., which has a high demand for illicit drugs, and Mexico, which has a high capacity for drug production, are equally guilty in this illicit enterprise. While the U.S. needs to work exceptionally hard in reducing demand at home and controlling arms movement along the border, the U.S. government is also trying to help out Mexico with a strategic plan called the Merida Initiative. This policy includes donating billions of dollars in order to dismantle criminal organizations, institutionalize the rule of law, develop 21st-century border facilities and building strong and resilient communities.

In a Sept. 10 Cornell Daily Sun op-ed, a columnist labeled the Merida Initiative as “the biggest insult the U.S. has thrown Mexico’s way in years.” While I understand this author’s concerns and frustrations with the situation, her comment is highly misinformed, since she did not seem to express, in detail, about what the Merida Initiative is all about. What the U.S. is trying to do is supplement and guide Mexico in serious institutional changes that need to be put in place if we want permanent change. Institutional and structural issues such as corruption, a weak judiciary system and unemployment are Mexico’s problems, and no matter how much aid they get from the U.S., it is a change that Mexicans need to undertake within their great sovereign territory. For instance, if someone commits a crime in Ciudad Juarez, that person has approximately a 90-percent chance of going unpunished. If the law enforcement and judiciary institutions in the state of Chihuahua were not as corrupt and inefficient, this alarming statistic would be much lower. The problem is that the police and judges are corrupt or fear retaliation from the cartels, as killing DA’s, judges and mayors are now common occurrences.

Not without justification, the Merida Initiative is often criticized because its social component is the last priority and it has not shown a commitment with improving the social aspects that are visible to the public. While this policy should be enhanced by allocating more funds to social and educational programs that will reduce demand for drugs, Mexico needs to play its part as well and improve its mediocre public education system and provide more job opportunities in order to reduce the supply of labor for the drug market.

On Sept. 16 Mexico celebrated its 200 years of independence. These massive celebrations were met with different responses, but the most predominant attitudes were pride, joy and optimism. These are the attitudes that one hopes Mexico adopts on a daily basis if it wishes to effectively face these complex issues. After observing how much Mexicans love and care about their country, I am convinced that they will not allow organized crime to completely plague their republic, and that they will resist, just as Colombians did for more than 20 years. When it comes to Americans, we must not show ignorance, indifference or unresponsiveness. We must be as committed as Mexicans should be; if not this issue which no wall (no matter how high) can stop will progressively permeate the 1,969 miles that make up our border.

In April, the Obama administration announced plans to begin enforcing long-neglected laws specifying the conditions of unpaid internships. The Labor Department states that with few exceptions, it is illegal for students to spend a summer or semester learning the inside of a private sector industry without pay. Internships are considered legal only if they are structured educational experiences designed specifically to benefit the intern and do not promise a job after the internship ends.

The Labor Department’s policies limiting student experiences have faced scrutiny in the past few months as they threaten to deprive students of much-needed opportunities to prepare for the job market. The National Association of Colleges and Employers estimates half of the internships worked by students who graduated in 2008 were unpaid, meaning the results of this crackdown will be dramatic.

Some wonder if these internships are truly valuable experiences that benefit the students or if they represent companies taking advantage of desperate and already destitute students. This should not be a primary concern considering these internships are completely optional. Students would not choose to work for free if they did not believe the potentially valuable experience was worth the monetary sacrifice. If they realize the position is not what they thought it would be, they are free to quit. Though some students find these internships too costly and will choose to avoid them, it does not hurt to have these options available.

Unfortunately, another central question is more difficult to answer: who really deserves these jobs? Should they go to those who are willing to work for the least pay, or to those who depend on them for their livelihood? Some interns are performing tasks regular employees would perform, such as answering the phones or making copies, creating a fear that for-pay workers are being displaced in favor of free labor.

From a free-market perspective, the clear solution is to award the jobs to those who are willing to work for the least pay, even if they will work for nothing at all. However, our government does not currently subscribe to this purely capitalist school of thought when dealing with compensation of labor. Minimum wage laws reflect a belief workers should get some basic level of payment for their work.

Some argue the millions of unemployed residents of the United States who are not in college should be the priority. They cannot simply apply for student loans or Pell Grants when struggling to make ends meet. But college students use internships to further their education, bringing value to the economy by entering the workforce more experienced and more competent, potentially creating more jobs in the long run.

The Obama administration has the authority to crack down on most of these unpaid internships because there are already laws in place that prohibit them, but this is a shortsighted view. It would be in the best interest of students for businesses and colleges to design internship programs wherever possible that provide working experiences that will be most valuable to them following graduation, even if they must conform to the new guidelines, damaging though they may be.

In many cases the way you present yourself tells the company as much about you as your resume does. So what are you saying? “I am sloppy, unorganized and unprofessional”? Or “I am mature, put together and ready for anything”?

Everyone who wants a job would like to give off the second impression, right? Follow my list of wardrobe dos and don’ts and you will send the right message.

Ladies:

1. Wear “work shoes”. These don’t have to be ugly, flat grandma looking shoes, just conservative.  Wear a closed toe shoe in a black or brown with a two-inch or shorter heel. My pointy-toe, patent leather, one-inch heels look amazing with my suit. I feel confident without calling too much attention to myself.

2. Wear the appropriate undergarments. It is important to leave some things up to the imagination.  Fight panty lines with spanks or a thong. At my last interview the only thing I remembered about my competitor was her underwear lines. I wondered, “Was that all the interviewers remembered too?”

3. Stay classy. Your work clothes should be some of the nicest in your closet. Invest in a quality pant or skirt suit that fits you correctly. Don’t wear anything that is too tight or low cut.  This will give you added confidence and give you a polished look at your interview. Also, make sure you wear natural looking make-up and a small amount of jewelry.

4. Use a work purse. It is a little unusual for women to carry a brief case, but you want to have somewhere to put extra resumes, your keys and your portfolio. A work purse is a large purse that is half purse and half briefcase. Many of them even have large pockets for your laptop or portfolio.

5. Hairstyle. Take time to think about your hair. Wearing it down can cause you to flip it out of your eyes and push it behind your shoulder. This can be distracting for the interviewer and can make you lose your train of thought while speaking. If you want to wear your hair down use a clip to pull up one side or wear it half up. You might also want to avoid the completely straightened look. It is a very trendy hairstyle among college students and shows your age.

Men:

1. Wear a suit. This one is a no-brainer, but many people think that just wearing a jacket is enough. Also, make sure to that your shirt or tie isn’t too loud. A white shirt and solid silk tie are safe.

2. Cover your ankles. Make sure that you have black dress socks because nothing can show your age faster then short, casual socks.

3. No jewelry. There is no reason for a man to wear earrings, bracelets or necklaces at an interview. You don’t want to look like a pimp; stick with a watch and wedding ring.

4. Handshake. Make sure your hands are ready for that first handshake. If you work with your hands and have rough calluses, use a salt scrub to remove all the edges. Try to use some hand lotion, no scent, to soften up your hands. Also, take care of your fingernails and make sure they are trimmed and clean.

5. Go short. Do you enjoy your hair blowing in the wind? Your interviewer won’t. Cut your hair short for your interview for a good first impression; you can grow it out again after you snag the job.

You want to make a good impression and send the right message. Follow this Interview Dress Code and you will be off to a great start!

Those who get the chance to work for a company that pays interns are the lucky ones. This summer, I worked for a small public relations firm in New York City. I got the internship through a program called Dream Careers. They helped set me up with interviews at the companies of my choice, provided housing at New York University, trips and other events to create an all-inclusive experience. Of course it didn’t come cheap, but it was by far one of the best summers of my life.

I worked 9 a.m. to 6p.m. Monday through Friday. I had weekends to explore the fabulous, bustling city where I’ve always wanted to live after graduation. The most important thing I left the city with was a “glowing recommendation” from the owner of Dark PR where I worked. It’s important if you work at a small company that probably won’t be able to hire you that you leave with a recommendation that can help you land a job in the future. Many of the students in the Dream Careers program who worked at large companies like UBS got job offers, so going for larger companies usually provides more opportunities.

I was the first intern of the summer, so I worked alone with the account executive for my first month. When the other two interns started, I trained them and made sure to keep my presence known. The key to success in a summer internship is to not be afraid to stand out. Take a risk, go to your boss and ask for more work. You never want to leave your internship in August and say to yourself, “Wow, I should have done that,” or, “Why didn’t I take on that project?” You want to leave with a feeling of accomplishment.

If you are one of those students who hated their internship all summer, don’t lose hope. It was still worthwhile; at least you know it’s not the job for you, and you won’t spend a year or more stuck in it after graduation. As long as you get a recommendation, it will help get you where you eventually want to go. The person you worked for is a great resource and can even act as a mentor to guide you and give advice. I’ve been in touch with my boss since I left New York City, and I plan to stay in touch so that I can use her as a resource in the future.

If you have been thinking about looking or applying for an internship, there are many routes you can take. First, you might want to talk with a professor or adviser about places close to school if you want to work during the school year. If you want to intern in the summer, you can ask about options by your hometown or other cities of interest. It’s also a great idea to search online for internship placement programs; they provide inclusive opportunities in many cities so you don’t feel restricted to stay at home. I found Dream Careers through a listserv e-mail, so check those frequently and ask friends who have done internships. Networking is the first step.

There are so many opportunities for students of all majors; you just have to put yourself out there. I had one of the best summers of my life, made many memories and I am confident about my career choice and my future.

An internship in minor league baseball might not sound as prestigious as anything in the majors, but NYU senior Chase Kressel saw the value in one.

“I don’t exactly know what I want to do yet,” the sports management major said. “It’s great to get experience here and to see what I like and don’t like.”

Kressel is one of three NYU students and alumni working for the Newark Bears. But over the course of one game day in mid-July, he did much more than most interns do in an ordinary afternoon.

I walked into Bears & Eagles Riverfront Stadium just after 9 a.m., two hours before a morning match-up with Atlantic League rival Bridgeport.

Players were beginning to file in when Kressel asked me to wait on a couch in the lobby of the team offices. After a few minutes, Ricky Benichak, another sports management intern from NYU, approached me.

Benichak, a sophomore, primarily assists the club behind the scenes, working on the players’ payroll, sponsorship contracts and game promotions.

“It’s all about putting fans in the seats,” said. This game happened to be a camp-day promotion, where Tri-State area summer camps were invited for hot dogs and to watch the game.

We talked for a few minutes before I went to explore the stadium. As I paced the concourse, I noticed the sky looked threatening.

I quickly made my way up to the press box and found business manager and NYU alumnus, Tom Phillips. Because the general manager wasn’t around that day, Phillips was especially busy. Still, he assured me the game would be played.

Phillips earned a master’s degree in sports management at NYU, and now does, as he put it, “a little bit of everything” for the team.

When first pitch was finally delivered at 11:08 a.m., I settled into my seat for what I hoped would be a relaxing afternoon of baseball. Benichak sat next to me and operated the scoreboard while Kressel was in the next room serving as game announcer.

An hour of clean baseball passed, but during the top of the fourth inning the skies opened up. The grounds crew quickly ran to place the tarp on the field, and a marathon, two-hour rain delay began.

I tried to find Phillips several times to ask him when the delay would end, but he was nowhere to be found. Later he told me he was one of the men out pulling the tarp over the field and updating both teams with weather reports.

As 1,600 children from eight local summer camps trickled out of the stadium, assuming the game would be canceled, the delay dragged on.

With the stadium seemingly empty, Kressel and Benichak had to return to work fast when the tarp came off the field and play finally resumed. The later innings dragged, but in the end, the last place Bears pulled out a 4-1 victory.

Though I’m inwardly groaning, I smile and nod at this tall, overdressed woman. She appears to be the substitute dietician, and she appears to know everything about me—from my name to the fact that my co-intern departed last week. I’ve never laid eyes on her before in my life.

“Right. I’m pre-med. I’m still in college.”

It’s about 10 A.M. on a Thursday. I’ve been at work at the HIV clinic for 90 minutes, and it’s already been a long day. I can predict exactly how this conversation will go: for the umpteenth time since my arrival in South Africa, I will have to explain that no, although I’m 21 years old, I’m not yet in medical school. We Americans do things differently.

The novelty of this conversation has long worn off, and I would much rather be playing peek-a-boo with the two-year-old boy sitting in the waiting room in front of me. He doesn’t understand a word of English, but things are simpler that way sometimes. Peek-a-boo transcends the English/Zulu language barrier, and for this reason, Thursdays—the day when the pediatrician is on duty in the clinic—are my favorite days at Ethembeni.

Then the dietician drops the second-most common question I am asked in South Africa: “So, what’s different about our country compared to yours?”

This is a question that I find unnecessarily difficult to answer.

The education system, obviously, is a difference I spend a lot of time talking about. The fences that line middle- and upper-class neighborhoods also come to mind. I have never seen such a concentration of electric fences in such a widespread area as I have in my travels around the greater Durban area. There’s greater poverty here, of course, and we don’t have HIV clinics like this at home because there’s no need for them. Throw in the obvious stuff—different language, different majority race, different indigenous animals—and I can generate a pretty good, if uninspired, list.

But after that, I start to get stuck.

Well then, surely the food or the TV shows or the rhythm of life? Every evening here, I walk home from the hospital, check my email, read a little bit, eat dinner (last night: spaghetti bolognese), and watch television with the family I live with (their favorite shows: Survivor, Gossip Girl, and Will & Grace). Sounds pretty much like what I would be doing at home, except here, I get to watch a beautiful sunset over the Valley of 1,000 Hills every night, and though it’s the middle of winter, we still go to the beach on the weekends. So there’s that, at least.

Eventually, the dietician grows bored of our conversation. Maybe it’s just that I’m grumpy—close to 100 patients come through the clinic each day, and registering them and sorting through their files is a monotonous task in this computer-less system—and not willing to engage in intellectual debate this morning.

I turn back to the little boy. He’s been tugging at his mother’s skirt, but upon realizing that my attention is back on him, he toddles over to my desk, and we resume our game of peek-a-boo.

Or maybe it’s just that things really aren’t so different after all.

Which is why after we wrap I bid farewell to my former co-workers and, being single myself, decide to wander around the white party for Jewish singles in Riverside Park that I have been filming. After taking in the scene and mingling for a few minutes, however, I come to realize that in the midst of these hip denizens of Manhattan, I’m the perhaps the only person here who is still in college.

And this scares me. It is a glimpse of what my summer nights will one day begin to look like.

To be sure, people in their late twenties to early thirties are far from elderly, but in my myopic, adolescent outlook on life these young professionals can no longer be considered young. They have already entered the real world. They are at least somewhat self-sufficient. Most of them have officially chosen their career paths, and the ones that did not pick academia have thus totally eschewed the concept of a summer vacation.

As a twenty-one year old still incubating in university, I soon find myself as the center of attention of the older women at this party. But this is a curse far more than a blessing. An encounter with a cute girl six years my senior that begins with an epic Twizzler swordfight quickly devolves into a career counseling session after I divulge my interest in attending law school. (“Divorce law is depressing,” she says, referring to her own profession. “Don’t do divorce law.”) A gaudy middle-aged woman in an ill-fitting white blouse asks for my sign and gets far too giggly when I reveal that I’m an Aquarius. (“I’m an Aries!” She shrieks. “You’re water and I’m fire. We go together perfectly!”)

After numerous painful and hilariously awkward moments like these, I come to discover how truly lucky I am that I do not have work in the morning. The mixer is slated to end at 3 A.M. but most of the guests will be out of here long before then. Yet I could stay here for hours, flirting with the graduate students and the unemployed women as they discuss their ex-husbands until dawn. I need to relish everything I feel at these moments of aimlessness, I realize, because, quite simply, moments like these are ephemeral.

I find an iron railing to lean on at the edge of the party. From there I watch as a few intrepid singles make their way down to the playground with their new romantic partners. They take off their shoes and swing like children from the monkey bars in their white shirts and dresses. I stand above them and smile as I look to the buildings lit up like fireflies across the river and savor the taste of the evening air.

For Texas A&M U. seniors Amy Oliver and Emily Jernigan, reaching for the stars is no longer a tired cliché. They were chosen for an internship program with NASA researchers organized by the National Space Biomedical Research Institute.

Oliver and Jernigan are among the 19 students chosen from a pool of 250 from universities including Cornell, Harvard and Rice. The program places students in fields such as audiology, flight medicine, radiation and behavioral sciences.

“Students are getting valuable hands-on experience with space and biomedical research,” said Brad Thomas, senior communications officer for the program. “They are able to go into the laboratories and work with NASA scientists.”

In addition to working with top NASA researchers, interns chosen for this program attend lectures from other scientists and astronauts in their fields of research, Thomas said.

“It is a lot of different things [interns] are getting immersed in, and different work they are getting the opportunity to be exposed to,” Thomas said.

Oliver, a biomedical engineering major, was placed in the research field of audiology, a field she did not consider.

“I am not an audiology student, but this is where the program placed me,” Oliver said. “I really enjoy it though. I did not have audiology in my future, but if that becomes an opportunity, that would be really great.”

Oliver works on software to test the hearing of astronauts during space missions.

“The old computer really needs to be updated, and that is including [astronaut] hearing tests,” she said. “There are definitely possibilities of hearing being affected because the launch is really loud and the space station itself is very loud.”

She works with a NASA audiology researcher, compiling data from hearing tests to see how the astronauts’ hearing is affected by the conditions of space travel.

Jernigan, a senior biology major, was put into the research field of flight medicine, which was a field she planned to pursue.

She works on updating instructional videos that are sent up to space to instruct astronauts on medical procedures such as catheter insertion and laceration care.

“The videos we have currently are not meant for orbit, so a lot needs to change based on flight differences,” Jernigan said. “I have worked in mission control, and I have gotten to observe [astronauts’] physical tests in the Neutral Buoyancy Laboratory, which is the largest pool in America.”

Jernigan said she is fortunate to experience such an opportunity.

“I have gotten to do so many cool things,” she said. “I was always considering doing flight medicine and becoming a flight surgeon. Now I know it is something that I want to do.”