Yet strikingly, almost everyone involved in the controversy seems to agree on one thing: As Ross Perlin puts it in this timely and clear-sighted book, the first on the internship boom, "In much of the developed world, the subtle, relentless pressure to do an internship is now simply part of being young. His preface offers an overview: Internships have spread to virtually every industry and almost every country, while internship-related businesses and campus career offices also proliferate, hawking internships, organizing internship fairs.
Perlin's energetic exploration of this world is mostly confined to America, with a few British detours, but the questions he asks are profound and wide-ranging. What exactly are the social implications of their "curious blend of privilege and exploitation"? And, most interestingly perhaps, what does the intern boom tell us about the modern workplace and modern capitalism? He begins at Disney World in Florida.
Intern Nation by Ross Perlin – review | Books | The Guardian
Thirty years ago, faced with a local labour shortage that threatened to undermine its plans to expand the immense theme park, Disney contacted American universities to see if they would be happy to lend students as temporary workers. The universities, writes Perlin, "were strongly supportive. Out of this usefully flexible arrangement — for the company at least — has grown one of the biggest internship programmes in the world: Disney does pay; but only "near minimum wage", and interns work almost full time, "without sick days or time off, without grievance procedures, without protection against harassment or unfair treatment".
Disney interns are also required to live in gated company compounds, with the rent deducted from their pay. Perlin sneaks into one, and finds barrack-like apartment blocks where tired interns live two to a room and "regular searches.
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Like the immigrant construction workers who live in similar camps in Dubai, the Disney interns, you realise, are really a permanent low-cost workforce. That the notoriously hard-nosed Disney company has such an attitude to interns may not come as a complete surprise, but Perlin quickly shifts his focus to employers you might imagine would be more enlightened. In law, in politics, in entertainment conglomerates — in many of the most glamorous parts of the economy for ambitious young people — hungry, exploitable interns proliferate.
One consequence has been to make possible the kind of multi-tasking careers now enjoyed by media celebrities. Perlin quotes John Stossel, a well-known rightwing American broadcaster: They've done most of the research for my books and most of the research that won me Emmy Awards. I asked my TV bosses to pay for the research help, but they laughed at me, saying, 'You think we're made of money? This book is important because Perlin has spotted that the internship phenomenon is a symptom of broader changes in business and the psyche of the middle-class worker.
The increasingly entrepreneurial mindset of young professionals, seeing themselves as brands that require investment, such as unpaid work, to get established; the assumption of most companies that, executive salaries aside, labour costs should be ruthlessly minimised; the vogue for things being given away or done for "free", in business strategies and even political programmes such as Cameron's Big Society — all these trends may make the internship the quintessential modern workplace experience.
Half a century ago it was very different. Instead, there were paid apprenticeships and structured training programmes, sometimes oppressive and stifling compared to the open-ended experiences of the luckiest or most able of today's interns, but more egalitarian: Feb 20, Laurel rated it did not like it. Given the focus of Internship at Endicott College, I was particularly interested to read Perlin's commentary. This book was very difficult to get through because of the author's tone.
He was relentless in his criticism of the internship experience by virtue of the idea that, for most, it is an unpaid experience. While I clearly understood his arguments, the way he framed the internship in a negative light made me angry.
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He provided many, many anecdotes, but shared no successes. He placed much of Given the focus of Internship at Endicott College, I was particularly interested to read Perlin's commentary. He placed much of the blame on higher education and failed to support these arguments with good data. I was surprised given the scope of this book, he failed to even mention Endicott College, one of the first if not the first school to require multiple internships in its curriculum as a requirement of graduation.
Dec 10, Malcolm rated it it was amazing. As anyone who has worked an unpaid internship knows, they are bullshit. It is cheap labor and to undertake one is to abused in exchange for false promises. Perlin lays all this out including a wider context in which these internships tank local economies, bar the underprivileged from social mobility, and even hurt the companies that offer them by diluting their pool of applicants. To be fair, Perlin does outline good internships and gives several examples of organizations working under this model As anyone who has worked an unpaid internship knows, they are bullshit.
To be fair, Perlin does outline good internships and gives several examples of organizations working under this model. For an internship to be effective, it must focus on educating the intern. If the intern's work benefits the company, the intern must be paid. Perlin interviewed numerous interns and brings their struggles to his book. He ends with a call for action. Interns need to stand up and demand their rights. They need to demand their employers be compliant with the laws that govern working conditions and they need to do so soon. Even if one believes their internship will give them a leg up, they should demand these rights.
Without them, redress is difficult if not impossible. Not being considered an employee can bar an intern from suing for basic protections against hazardous working conditions or sexual harassment. As mentioned in Perlin's book, sexual harassment of interns is almost commonplace, especially for cushy government internships. Nov 16, Malcolm rated it really liked it Shelves: This has gone well beyond the cultural industries where it was a taken for granted that designers, film makers and the like would spend time working in studios to soak up the aura of the master, to absorb some of the genius of the auteur, and build up a portfolio.
In some cases, interns like the young doctors to whom it applied are trainees for specific jobs — a kind of white collar version of an apprentice, while in others they are only cheap or free labour and there is no training involved although there is often a smokescreen of the language of on-the-job learning, as if someone needs to spend six months dong data entry to understand how spreadsheets and data bases work!
The case is compelling: Aug 11, Jordyn Haime rated it it was amazing. I spent hundreds of dollars just to be able to work for free: Perhaps what hurts the most is the fact that this book came out in and nothing has changed, except for the fact that the Department of Labor recently made it MORE difficult for interns to get the wages they have worked for. Unpaid internships are still vastly under-researched and under-reported on. Please read this book. Jul 07, Kyle Ryan rated it it was amazing. Jun 09, dimwig rated it liked it Shelves: This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers.
To view it, click here. May 14, Lauren Holliday rated it it was amazing. May 31, mike rated it did not like it. I hate to give any book one star, but saying that this book is "OK" would be to do a disservice to the important subject it addresses. There may be a truth to much of what author Ross Perlin says, and at the length of a New Yorker article, this could have been a compelling thesis. Drawn out to book length, though, one wonders if there's a "there" there, and that's a shame. Perhaps the most serious failing of this book is its reliance on a single source, an advocacy piece from an organization call I hate to give any book one star, but saying that this book is "OK" would be to do a disservice to the important subject it addresses.
Perhaps the most serious failing of this book is its reliance on a single source, an advocacy piece from an organization called Intern Bridge. References to this piece recur throughout the book, each time in a first-reference style that seems designed to obscure its repeated citation indeed, it is mentioned only once in the thin endnotes. Gardner is first quoted as being from the College [sic] Employment Research Institute on p.
Later on the same page, Perlin first cites "The Debate," crediting it to Intern Bridge, following up with quotes from Gardner without mentioning that he's also the author of the cited report. For the next page, quotes from Gardner and quotes from "The Debate" are interleaved as if they were two separate sources. I didn't realize this was going on until a bit later, when I tripped over two assertions occupying the same paragraph: LinkedIn does target a more tech-savvy and somewhat narrow demographic, with a claimed million profiles. But if there really are more than a million internships per year, wouldn't more than a bare percentage point of LinkedIn profiles claim this experience?
At this point my mind reeled, and I found myself critiquing references and citations more than reading the book itself. A little later, "a Michigan State University study" is cited as supporting background for some figures in "The Debate. Until now none of Perlin's citations has mentioned the connection between Gardner and Michigan State; only by going to the footnote could one divine the connection without doing an internet search. And never is Gardner mentioned in connection with authorship of "The Debate. Perlin then opens a sweeping critique, slugged "A Lawsuit Waiting to Happen," with figures from a study cited as if it were first reference.
He makes it to page 89 before bringing Gardner back for a series of quotes in the chapter "Cheerleaders on Campus. Sadly, by this time, I don't trust his objectivity enough to put much credence in the many pages based on anonymous sources, given manufactured "names" in quotes to make them seem more human. In the end, this is just another book-length advocacy essay, the likes of which choke the non-fiction shelves.
A better researched, more even-handed and shorter book might have won this former intern over. As it is, I see yet another author crying wolf. Dec 12, Gabrielle Trenbath rated it liked it. It was a sobering experience, considering that I am doing what Perlin would a complete waste of time and resources. He gives many examples of internships that are unpaid and give the participant few opportunities for skills development or exposure to the key business of the organisation.
He argues that internships are often touted as nothing more than an introduction to a shallow culture of an organisation or industry. While doing jobs to pay the rent and working on informal projects with friends are the catalyst of developing a large number of skills but in this day and age I doubt that they have much value in the job market. Also, the demise of the entry level job has lead to more competition for positions further up the career ladder and therefore if you have just finished university and there a few opportunities available to learn to apply your "trade", so you soon realise that you have to do something such as internships to give you an edge.
Maybe his point that they won't give point that internships will not give you edge. I think that this point should have discussed sooner in the book and in more detail. Jun 17, Chavi rated it really liked it. Why unpaid internships are terrible: Unless they meet 6 guidelines, one of which is that there needs to be actual training, which is rarely the case.
Another one is that the intern 2. How can you employ people without paying them? They exacerbate inequality because who can afford to do work for no pay, except people who have parents or trust funds to support them?
Intern Nation by Ross Perlin – review
Interns don't have any workplace rights since they don't fall under the catego Why unpaid internships are terrible: Interns don't have any workplace rights since they don't fall under the category of employee. So no minimum wage, overtime, no recourse for sexual harassment. Some students pay to work. The school gets tuition for the credits they earn making coffee. Learning by experience is not the same thing as learning by osmosis. Since internships are not jobs they don't have to be advertised like jobs, which therefore leads to discrimination in who knows about and is chosen for the internships.
Many internships, especially the highly coveted ones, are all awarded via nepotism, which further denigrates equal access to opportunity. In some industries, it is virtually impossible to get a job without first doing unpaid internships, which discourages many people from entering the field to begin with. If you're not convinced yet, what would convince you? Of course there are many positives to internships when done properly.
Exposure to new and different opportunities, on the job experience, and networking in a field of interest. The problem is that the vast majority are not done properly, and it's no secret. Schools know it, businesses exploit it, and students are forced to play along if they want to get ahead.
This makes me so angry, especially the part about how it exacerbates inequality. Students who work at Starbucks and McDonalds to support themselves or pay for college don't have a chance against students whose parents are paying for them to spend a summer in DC or NY earning nothing and learning little. This book was written in Since then there have been some changes.
There were a few cases of interns suing for backpay and winning.
Overall though, the situation remains as is. May 06, Anna rated it liked it Shelves: I don't fundamentally disagree with the writer. I, too, would like to see interns properly supervised and trained, protected by normal legal rules against workplace harassment or abuse, and paid — at least something. And yes, it is outrageous that Disney and the like run their summertime operations with overworked and underpaid college kids, or that the initiation rite of unpaid internships is taking certain professions essentially out of reach for those without the right connections or deep-poc I don't fundamentally disagree with the writer.
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And yes, it is outrageous that Disney and the like run their summertime operations with overworked and underpaid college kids, or that the initiation rite of unpaid internships is taking certain professions essentially out of reach for those without the right connections or deep-pocketed parents. But Perlin would have made much more convincing an argument by cutting out at least half of his rants and concentrating on what he call the "The Intern Bill of Rights" instead. The examples in the book highlight the extremes of internship abuses without really answering the fundamental dilemma: For Perlin, challenging intern projects necessarily mean replacing legitimately paid workforce, and running office errands is always exploitation.
Additionally, Perlin fails to acknowledge that the internship experience may be very different depending on the initiative the intern her- or himself shows. But the realities of office life are not so black and white — perhaps a suitable mix of challenges, independent thinking and necessary grunt work is exactly what a good internship should be all about.
I also share another reviewer's dislike for Perlin's style to reference to the same, unimpressively small number of sources over and over again. But since that's not very atypical for this kind of books, it seems like a minor complaint. Yet, the suggestion to group pressure the white collar industries to denounce unpaid internships and start realistic budgeting for their young apprentices seems reasonable.
We might need another, more balanced text though to make that actually happen. Jun 06, Matt rated it liked it. I found this to be a strange read, a book that was a lot more aggressive in its argumentation than most of the non-fiction I read, even those books that too have explicit arguments. To me, in fact, this book felt like a throw-back, the kind of book you'd expect a union boss at the AFL-CIO making in the nineties, the kind of commentary you want to shake your head at and say, "yeah, but it's not like that anymore"-- the apprenticeship model, for example, is outmoded for a reason, and that's becaus I found this to be a strange read, a book that was a lot more aggressive in its argumentation than most of the non-fiction I read, even those books that too have explicit arguments.
Intern Nation: How to Earn Nothing and Learn Little in the Brave New Economy
To me, in fact, this book felt like a throw-back, the kind of book you'd expect a union boss at the AFL-CIO making in the nineties, the kind of commentary you want to shake your head at and say, "yeah, but it's not like that anymore"-- the apprenticeship model, for example, is outmoded for a reason, and that's because, at least to me, currently represent the kind of industry for which most people work. Look, I went into this book concerned about internships and the way they seem to colonize the academic experience in ways I'm uncomfortable with.
And this book did a LOT to give me details and trails of argument as to why I should be concerned-- there is a ton of information in this book, whose prose density makes it seem much longer than its pps. The two appendices at the end, dealing respectively with US and non-US internships are a really solid starting point for a discussion about internships that is important, and otherwise hard to figure out how to start.
But the book as a whole doesn't present anything like a balanced picture; I really found myself wondering how we got to this employment hellscape, and never quite believe Perlin when he says he just wants to talk about internships-- he really does seem set on their destruction. Reading his book, it's not hard to see why he'd fail that way, but it made it hard for me to read this without wincing a little.
Oct 18, Bonnie Samuel rated it really liked it. This book perfectly summarizes the major problems with internships, and, in a lot of ways, higher education. Done right, internships can be excellent ways to introduce students to a career and prepare them for entering the workforce. Unfortunately, most internships aren't done right. They're used by companies who want free labor and have no intention of bringing on any of the interns into full-time, paid positions or even offering standardized training.
Or they're given away to children of elite This book perfectly summarizes the major problems with internships, and, in a lot of ways, higher education. Or they're given away to children of elites who use their connections to get their kids into desirable, well-compensated careers while the children of those who don't have these connections don't stand a chance and often find themselves blocked from even entering a particular career field because of it. Stunningly, interns have no legal rights and therefore no recourse when they suffer abuse or discrimination.
Students pay thousands of dollars for academic credit for jobs that have them fetching coffee and making copies. Or they work for no money AND no academic credit on the premise of "getting experience". It's shameful to see companies and colleges taking such gross advantage of students and their families, harming all entry-level workers in the process. It's even worse that the government allows it and actively participates in it. Jun 11, Josh rated it really liked it Recommends it for: Aug 07, Dan Sharber rated it really liked it Shelves: Jul 04, Christina Boyle rated it liked it.
Get riled up and read about how corporations exploit young people and how generally the elite get ahead through access. There is a conclusion in the book though - if corporations or an employer wants productive workforces, it needs to invest in the recruitment and training of the workforce. It's not just the job of the individual or the university. Some of the best corporations are waking up to this fact and you see it in the programs that they offer to pipeline intern talent and the intern prog Get riled up and read about how corporations exploit young people and how generally the elite get ahead through access.
Some of the best corporations are waking up to this fact and you see it in the programs that they offer to pipeline intern talent and the intern programs that they are substantive, paid and include diversity initiatives. A second point, it is that by allowing the unpaid or low paid internships to flourish unfettered, it is reinforcing the cycle of abuse.
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