I got a bursary as a student nurse and no doubt your daughter does too. Granted, it isn't much but it is not the same as unpaid internships.
Not really. When referencing the examples given in this threat about three months unpaid, 20+ hour weeks, playing the system, etc. Vs. coming in for a handful of hours a week, to your own schedule, to shadow people and learn from people doing a job you aspire to get, and being able to invoice for any actual work you do that falls outside of learning and development.
Your description doesn't match the job description. It's just to shadow people now on your own schedule and is paid anyway? I thought you had to commit to certain hours when the club required you, that you would be doing work rather than simply shadowing and that it was a voluntary internship. If the club had advertised for someone to shadow employees as and when they wanted to and with the opportunity to take on paid work too then the response would have been different.
You can read about what interns get up to on more sites than the BBS though. I’ve spoken to a couple in the past as well that have been around on a match day. I just know that one intern, fairly recently, did some paid work rather than the shadowing, flexible part, and was able to invoice for that work. My point being it’s ok to say it’s a grey area around people/companies abusing the system when some are demanding of interns to do months of unpaid, actual work, with a rota and times to come in. This isn’t that is it? You might still think it should be paid, that’s fair enough, but it was hardly a ‘gotchya’ moment. There’s always two ends of the spectrum on almost everything in life - you can be more comfortable and positive about one end whilst still being allowed to be critical of the other end. At least in a normal world anyway.
Remember that people can only comment on what the club advertises, not what only you know from being told behind the scenes.
That job description, as it reads, is illegal. It may be different in actuality but that isn't what they have typed and advertised on their own website.
Most Universities offering a course with a year in industry do not pay students for that year in Industry. In fact you pay your tuition fees none the less, and are not shadowing people, but conducting work within the specified industry. If it's intrinsically linked to a college/university course, and is giving an opportunity for people to give themselves something positive to put on their CV, I don't really see the problem. Don't know if they do Trident/work experience from school anymore, but no one ever got paid for that. Likewise we don't ban volunteers working in charity shops and the like. This is a valuable opportunity for a driven individual to give themselves a leg up in a very competitive industry. I don't think anyone is being taken advantage of here.
I got paid £16500 for my year in industry in 2012/13. Every person I know who did a year in industry was paid something in that range. I paid 50% tuition fees for that year. Well I say paid, I will still be paying that off in 20 years time!
Well, we've just accepted a million quid from "investors" to keep us afloat. Seriously though, I get that it may rankle people, and may not be legal as advertised, but volunteering for a day a week for a year to set yourself apart from others who are in your industry looks good on a CV to prospective employers. If it was called volunteer rather than internship would that solve the moral problem for you? Amateur sports people don't get paid, but are arguably doing the same job as professional sports people. In some sports to a very similar level. Like I say, no one is being forced to work in this role. It's advertised as unpaid, so no one is going into it blind. When I was 16 to 18 i coached a martial arts club once a week for the experience and never got paid. I did get asked about it on nearly every job interview I had up to being mid twenties.
May well have changed since 2000 when I went then, but I’m sure I was priced out of taking the option of working in industry because I had a full time job whilst studying. Maybe the amount was sufficiently insignificant that it meant I couldn’t afford tuition fees and housing without working somewhere that paid better. I didn’t even get a degree and only paid off my student loan about 3 years ago.
Which gets me back to my original point: this sort of thing descrminates against those from less affluent backgrounds. It is only viable to those who don't have to work. It also favours someone with a car. I find the defence of a business that pays many if its employees upwards of 5 grand a week but is not willing to pay other employees anything at all, nor link the internship to any accredited qualification, a little puzzling. Particularly as, from your last post, you've admitted you would have been unable to do this, if it was an area you were interested in, as you were working full time. It's for exactly this reason, so people like you aren't priced out of it, that it should be paid.
Nah. Not really. Top marks for throwing the Khaled jibe in there though. Good to have you back on form after the brief hiatus.
People choose to be self-appointed experts on subjects based on reading one article and ignoring a plethora of other comments from people with way more knowledge or experience of it (not including myself in that). You could always be ‘I get the value in it. It’s great the club offers people the opportunity and it’s proved so successful for so many young adults over the last six years. But in my opinion, despite it being just 4/5 hours a week, it should be paid’. Instead we get people trying sly digs, trying to trip others up, and even questioning their political stance. The BBS really isn’t that great a place these days. If you think it should be paid that’s fine. I get it. But I also think in this particular example it’s worth way more than the salary and is super flexible with very limited responsibilities. Why folk have to try and fall out over every differing of opinion I’ll never know.
Don’t want to fall out with anyone as it’s clear that I have a very different opinion to many on here, and whilst I say I wasn’t able to take a similar role in my youth, that’s probably not true. I wasn’t willing to sacrifice my lifestyle for my passion. As such I dropped out of uni and never got a degree. May well my part of my life experiences that give me this opinion. Just a couple of points though; Whilst having a car makes nearly all jobs more viable, aren’t travel expenses paid for this role? Also, many industries pay people more than £5000 a week and still pay some people minimum wage. Wage disparity is a different argument for me, but again, opinions. As a uni student paying for accommodation and tuition, if this role was minimum wage would I still have been able to have afforded to do it? In today’s cost of living crisis, probably not. Just my thoughts, not looking for an argument.