My first job was in IT and would have been an internship if the company regularly hired people (it didn't, this was a special case because of family connections

My first job was in IT and would have been an internship if the company regularly hired people (it didn't, this was a special case because of family connections). It was during the summer in high school and paid $10/hour. In college I had a part-time job doing computer repair/maintenance for a small office at $12.50 an hour, and later had a formal internship at a Fortune 500 company that paid $19.50 an hour All this took place in the greater Seattle area. Unless there is a compelling reason to work for free (e.g., difficult industry to break in to, extreme desire to work for said company) I would advocate never working for free if you can get paid. Everyone I've known who worked free as an intern (3 people, perhaps not a large enough sample) were treated unacceptably relative to the atmosphere of a professional office. One basically became 12 people's gopher, filling out uninteresting paperwork and rarely learning anything that added value to their ability to work. In addition, being paid to work puts one in a position to learn to manage their own finances, if only in part. For me this was easily more important than all the technical skills I picked up.