 "Photo: MCT Wire Service")
Internships are one of the best ways to get experience in the field and network. However, for most college students it is difficult to give up their time for an unpaid internship, especially when most have insurmountable student loans.
Sure, the experience is very valuable, but it leads to the question of how much do you value that experience? Are college students willing to give up the forgone wages for just to enhance their resume?
Well, that depends on the individual.
If Karl Marx were alive today, he would be downright disgusted by the amount of college students giving up their time for work in positions which they are not getting paid. He would criticize how the bourgeois and the whole capitalistic economic system are brutally exploiting college students for free labor in exchange for experience.
On the contrary, if Adam Smith were alive today, he would laugh and say that capitalism is working alive and well. Although he may disagree with college students giving up their forgone wages for experience, he and other classical economist would say "that there ain't no such thing as a free lunch" and they would still defend the idea of unpaid internships.
When you look at the true ideals of classic economics, it all boils down to efficiency. Working at an unpaid internship is a lot like attending college. Just like college we all attend to gain new skills and knowledge to pursue that dream career.
Like those internships that provide that invaluable experience, it is still a great risk. Although it is such a risk, it is a risk in which you are willing to take and believe that, that experience will benefit you in the future. Hopefully someone told you that college is not mandatory, but we could be out there in the real world working a job making money rather than devoting four years of our lives just for experience, with a big student debt on top. By attending college or interning without pay, we all take a risk in which we hope to become more efficient in our skills and paving a road to future success.
Essentially, it's all a risk.
Paid or unpaid, it doesn't matter. What matters is the experience, and whether or not it's going to pay off in the long run. This leaves the question of, are you willing risk the time, effort and money that you could have made at a job just to gain the experience and knowledge you need to pursue your dream career?