Another interesting tidbit about college education

Interesting piece (as usual) in the NYT about the value of college internships. This is part of my official linking system to all-things-college, and I appreciate the Times obliging my interest. But I do have some particular interests; four years at the Carleton College Career Center makes me especially attune to pieces about internships and other experiential education.

The article is called "Take This Internship And Shove It." This argument against the internship is particularly insightful:

Second, though their duties range from the menial to quasi-professional, unpaid internships are not jobs, only simulations. And fake jobs are not the best preparation for real jobs.

Long hours on your feet waiting tables may not be particularly edifying, but they teach you that work is a routine of obligation, relieved by external reward, where you contribute value to a larger enterprise. Newspapers and business magazines are full of articles expressing exasperation about how the Millennial-generation employee supposedly expects work to be exciting immediately, wears flip-flops to the office and has no taste for dues-paying. However true this stereotype may be, the spread of the artificially fun internship might very well be adding fuel to it.

What the article really nails is that unpaid internships are not the way to go for the employer or the employee. Unpaid interns don't have the kind of accountability they need for an employer to get anything meaningful out of them, and it doesn't work so well for the students who need to make money over the summer.