The Secret Of Unpaid Internships

By Samantha Weller on August 12, 2016

Internships should be of vital importance, as they challenge us in ways we can’t get from simple retail jobs in high school, and bring us as close as we can get to the workforce. They open us up to a whole new world and expose skills we never knew we had, while usually making us have better expectations about the field we aim to work in.

Internships also test our abilities that tie much closer to our career goals, and expose us to flaws we need to improve in order to meet those goals, but are sometimes brought into question by college students, as they are usually an opportunity we have only a few times or less in our lives.

Additionally, all internships are different, not just by field, but by the environment and company. Internships can’t easily be judged or made uniform from one person who has done one, because theirs might be completely different from another’s experience with one. Moreover, the correlation between getting paid or not in an internship seems to tie greatly towards how one seeks an internship, and how hard one works as an intern.

Over the years, I have learned the difference between paid and unpaid work, and was quite surprised to find that unpaid work actually has some great benefits paid work doesn’t entirely offer. I’m talking, of course, about unpaid internships — an opportunity some might look at as having less value than that of a paid one.

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Unpaid work as an intern has many more unique benefits than I had ever been used to in a working situation. While people usually get motivated either solely or mostly by the reward of payment, unpaid work has made me appreciate the skills I am learning way more, making me aware that I should still look forward to getting something out of it if it doesn’t involve getting paid. Not getting paid is surprisingly just as rewarding, in a way, as getting paid.

Serving customers, working the cash register, opening and closing same old same old, had suddenly turned into learning how to use systems I hadn’t before, attending meetings, and even thinking on new levels in terms of marketing. It was certainly far more of an adjustment in a job than I ever endured, but it prepared me so much for working after graduation.

I felt a new sense of competence, being able to take on much harder tasks and felt more important as a worker being asked to try new projects, while sometimes also being in charge of them. Despite not getting paid, I still felt like my confidence and diligence in the workplace finally propelled, from not having so many boundaries and small positions in previous jobs I have had. Not focusing on the money had me focusing more on how the internship was improving me day by day.

Finding your own motivation, next to obtaining the skills, is the other profound reward of unpaid internships. Motivation is the key to any internship, especially unpaid ones for some people who wonder if not getting paid is worth the entirety of the work. If you start off not entirely sure if you like the workload or not, you’ll find your own way to appreciate it and make the most out of the experience.

If you’re ever doing an unpaid internship, and feel any doubt, remember that it will benefit you a lot more than you might think. People value paid internships over unpaid internships because they feel they will get more of a “rewarding” feeling from it, but in fact, that is only because of perspective. From the way I see it, you can either look at it as wasted time, or view it as a whole new opportunity.  An opportunity that is generally only a one-time chance, as from then on out you will be learning major skills and applying your interests, but unfortunately have to focus on the reward of getting paid while trying to make it in the real world financially.

Having the different perspective of an unpaid internship can also sometimes make you realize whether you truly like the work or not, since you’re able to focus more on what you’re doing and getting out of the work. Too many people nowadays do work they don’t necessarily like, and only ‘like’ it because they’re getting paid, but when you aren’t you can discover what it truly means to you.

Unpaid internships offer not only great experience in your desired field, but a whole new outlook on whatever work you aspire to do. They can pave the way to appreciating the work you’re doing more than ever, and an overall better chance to do the work. Realize that being able to do work not with the reward of money in mind, but the reward of experience is the beauty of unpaid internships, and everyone should give them a shot at some point while they have such an unlimited time frame to try them.

Lastly, unpaid internships enhance your appreciation of the reward concept and teach you to retain any loss of motivation knowing that you came however far you did in it knowing you weren’t going to get paid. While it may be that you aren’t receiving money, the life of an unpaid intern is actually very fulfilling with the right realization of the work, along with a remaining rare perspective of being motivated.

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