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Unpaid internships seem to be rare for programmers... - Programmers of any sort who can get the job done in demand. There are more people who want to pay them

by geebee 14y ago

Unpaid internships seem to be rare for programmers... - Programmers of any sort who can get the job done in demand. There are more people who want to pay them than programmers available. - Even inexperienced programmers add value - sometimes a tremendous amount of value. It's not too hard to find a non-critical, short term project that would still be very useful, and the intern starts adding value on day one. So employers are less likely to "do without" if it turns out they have to pay. - Software interns have a better unpaid internship than the one you're offering - founding their own company. If a recent grad with programming ability is getting outside financial help (the kind that a parent might give to a recent grad doing an unpaid internship in the entertainment industry), that programmer can just try creating an app and seeing how to turn it into something financially viable. They might fail (they probably will fail), but will the experience be worse than a year of not getting paid at a bigco? (It depends, but a lot of companies in high tech would be impressed with someone who took a real crack at creating a financially viable product). I do occasionally see postings for unpaid cs/engineering internships, posted on campus bulletin boards. They are almost never from actual, high tech companies. These postings generally come from industries accustomed to getting the free interns (publishing, fashion, and so forth) - you know "gain valuable industry experience by writing extenstions in python for our CMS). It feels good to see these posts go up later offering a bit of pay (though still generally much lower than the interns could get elsewhere).

MatthewPhillips 14y ago
Internships are for people with a knowledge about, but not direct experience in some thing. That can apply as easily to programming as it can journalism.
- geebee 14y ago
  It can apply to journalism, but as easily as programming? It's hard to say, this is an interesting question. I think it boils down to this: how easily can a person from the outside gain experience in a field? There's a wide spectrum here. In software, it has become (especially in recent years) extremely easy to write and release an application to the world. Web sites, wireless apps, and so forth. So if you're going to work "for free", you really don't need to join a big organization to get that experience. I'm not saying there couldn't be benefits, but you could almost look at a startup as an unpaid internship working for yourself with massive upside. On the other side of the spectrum you might find something like surgery. I heard about a man who knew how perform a procedure on infants, who was later discovered to not possess the right credentials and licensing. He had "learned by doing." I guess you could view much of medical school and residency as a non-paid (or low paid) internship in a field where many people believe it would be unconscionable to sidestep the normal training. How hard is it to just launch your own fashion line, create your own "journalism" experience by starting a blog, and so forth? The world is opening up - certainly it's getting easier and easier to create, market, and distribute without the permission or help of a large organization. I think software is at the forefront, but certainly other fields are opening up as well.
- deleted 14y ago
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by geebee 14y ago

MatthewPhillips 14y ago

Internships are for people with a knowledge about, but not direct experience in some thing. That can apply as easily to programming as it can journalism.

geebee 14y ago
It can apply to journalism, but as easily as programming? It's hard to say, this is an interesting question. I think it boils down to this: how easily can a person from the outside gain experience in a field? There's a wide spectrum here. In software, it has become (especially in recent years) extremely easy to write and release an application to the world. Web sites, wireless apps, and so forth. So if you're going to work "for free", you really don't need to join a big organization to get that experience. I'm not saying there couldn't be benefits, but you could almost look at a startup as an unpaid internship working for yourself with massive upside. On the other side of the spectrum you might find something like surgery. I heard about a man who knew how perform a procedure on infants, who was later discovered to not possess the right credentials and licensing. He had "learned by doing." I guess you could view much of medical school and residency as a non-paid (or low paid) internship in a field where many people believe it would be unconscionable to sidestep the normal training. How hard is it to just launch your own fashion line, create your own "journalism" experience by starting a blog, and so forth? The world is opening up - certainly it's getting easier and easier to create, market, and distribute without the permission or help of a large organization. I think software is at the forefront, but certainly other fields are opening up as well.
deleted 14y ago
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