Unpaid internship. Worth it?

To answer this, let’s first look at what all an internship can offer. It can offer exposure, money and a few perks.

Whatever internship you take up, exposure is almost certainly something you’ll get. It’s the quality of exposure that differs. You get to know a lot of new things about the job and more than that you get to know what is it like to work in an office and how people conduct themselves.

Then comes the money part of it. An internship may be paid or unpaid. Here you need to take a good hard look at what other than money is the company offering. Are you getting to work in exactly the job you’d want for yourself? Can this internship help you come in contact with some quality experienced professionals from your field from whom you can learn a lot? and does the company have a big name in the industry? All these factors are to be looked into whenever an unpaid internship is offered.

If it fulfills even 2 of the 3 questions I just mentioned. I think it is worth working for this company even if it’s without pay.

Lastly, coming to the perks part of it. Which is pretty lucrative when it is a startup company. They offer you all day workspace snacks. You can play table football at office when you get bored. You can sit on a bean bag and work. All this also plays a major role in deciding on an internship. The fact that our generation values comfort over anything else, makes this an important aspect of an internship.

Concluding this, in my view, an internship has a lot more to offer than money. The stage of career when a person does internships is early in their career. So exposure should be the primary factor you look for when taking an offer. Money will come in larger amounts if you choose exposure at the internship stage.

-ChoubeySahab