Unpaid slave...I mean Intern

As the vice president of the Jewish Business Students Association, my email is listed as a student leader and is public information.  I receive a variety of emails through this, ranging from weekly student organization updates to emails from outside companies looking for interns or campus representatives.  I took the risk and applied and got one of these internships.

Having an on-campus representative is a great public relations tool for companies whose products appeal to and are used by college students.  These job offers that I have received to pass on to my organization typically are looking for an intern or on-campus representative.  I think it is great that companies are marketing straight to college students to offer jobs and get them interested.  But what's the catch?

Being an intern or on-campus representative can go a variety of ways.  One way is you may be a real part of the company, make money, and get valuable experience.  The other is being the company's paid (or often times unpaid) slave labor, doing all the annoying, unnecessary work that the real employees do not want to do.

I have experienced this myself.  I was a Greek intern for an online food guide website for Ohio State students, which I was told meant my specialty was to market the website to the Greek community, and get the website incorporated into Greek culture.  I was thrilled!

But then, I was asked to draw website logos all over campus in chalk, go door-to-door up and down numerous off-campus streets to place door hangers on all houses and apartments, stand on the Oval and pass out fliers during the involvement fair (instead of representing the club which I am vice president of), and spam my Twitter followers and Facebook friends with deals and offers.  And to do all of this without getting paid.

This was all right before and during the first week of classes.  There was no mention of appealing to the Greek community, and when asked, my supervisor weakly attempted to dodge around the question--telling me in his avoidance that I was not a "Greek intern," I was simply an unpaid slave.

I took that as the sign that this job was not for me, so I quit.  I was the first from the intern group to quit, and as of today, all of the interns from the original group have quit.

Public relations on college campuses centers around having students engage other students, and utilizing their connections.  However, while utilizing this popular public relations tactic, companies need to ensure they are considering the needs of their student employees, and to not falsely advertise to them.

I am much happier now in my paid internship, being the Strategic Issues Management Intern for OSU Media Relations.  I work 10 hours a week, my boss and everyone who I interact with treat me like an equal, and I am gaining actual experience that I can use in the future.

Internships can be great, like the one I have now, or they can make you lose all respect for a company, like my previous one.