There are other options, in Quebec they have a couple of universities doing co-op programs where students work (paid) half time and go to school the other half,

There are other options, in Quebec they have a couple of universities doing co-op programs where students work (paid) half time and go to school the other half, the schools find prospective employers and work out the duties the students need to perform. My cousin did this for his architect internship, this is a required part of his program, he needs two semesters like this to graduate. He had a positive experience and made a decent amount of money at the same time. I took a different route, while in College (in the Florida) I worked full time for the university as a System Adminstrator/Software Developer. I gain 4 years of experience doing it and only pushed my graduation a year back or so. It was hard, work sometimes clashed with school but right after I graduated I had not trouble finding work (I decided to leave the University to explore new stuff, 4 years in one place can get boring :) ). I would never take an unpaid internship because it's obvious that A) you don't learn anything filing papers all day B) it's obvious employers use this to get free labor even if they aren't supposed to, of course in the tech world we are lucky enough that self learners can quickly get jobs based on skills only. Not so in the other professions I guess.