Jumping ship: (Not) giving credit where credit is due

To liven up the scene a bit, my professor asked us each week to introduce ourselves by name, and then to state a specific fact, wish or other piece of information. Some weeks it was guilty pleasures, other weeks it was favorite food or our vacation spot. This week it was summer plans.

I immediately began to dread my turn at this introduction. After around five or so humble, toned-down announcements of international visits and prestigious opportunities — New York, China and Germany to name a few — we arrived at myself. I sheepishly replied, “I’m not sure what I’m doing yet.”

Don’t get me wrong. The lights didn’t flicker and the class was not agape. I’m not trying to pretend that my professor pointed a chalkboard eraser at my head, banishing me to the furthest corner of campus (Forbes — just kidding). But the mixture of my own bitterness and the change in his reaction to my explanation that I was still looking for internship opportunities in the San Francisco Bay Area — my hometown — produced a sour taste. How was he supposed to react? How was anyone supposed to pretend that “still looking around” was as exciting of a response as “South Africa?”

This was already a sore subject for me as the road had already been rocky enough. Just days earlier, I was forced to reject an internship offer because, due to University policy, I could not receive academic credit for it. My heart sank as I read an email that stated that the company of interest could not offer me a position if I did not receive academic credit for my work — “otherwise we would hire you as an intern in a heartbeat,” they said.

As I grimly continued my search for unpaid internships with nonprofit and government organizations, I realized that this was part of a much larger problem at Princeton. The University, without exceptions, does not offer academic credit for jobs and internships in which students participate. Many companies, without exceptions, do not offer positions to candidates who cannot receive academic credit. Many companies offering unpaid internships seek to give students something for their time and effort, so as not to be perceived as using a major swath of the American population as a free work force. The semblance of an unfair labor transaction is a scar that no organization wants to sport.

To be fair, when this situation arises, Career Services can write a letter of support indicating that it approves of students’ unpaid participation in such internships, essentially giving employers the green light to hire students without compensating them (monetarily or with academic credit). But for many, as in my case, a letter of support is simply not enough.

The problem here is, with the lack of reconciliation between two disparate philosophies, the students get left behind. I have looked through countless pages of internships with reputable organizations, and the same language serves as my instantaneous obstacle: “applicants must receive college course credit, no exceptions.” I’m still looking for something to do in my area this summer.

When neither side is willing to compromise, what are the students to do? Companies are missing out on a qualified, accomplished free workforce. Students are barred from the opportunities they wish to pursue. Since the “for credit” policy is so widespread among various organizations and companies, it seems unlikely that the change will come from their side. Perhaps the University could offer academic credit for these unpaid internships, but limit the number of “for credit” internships that may be taken during the four years at Princeton. Alternatively, students could receive credit for internships only after applying to do so. Such an application process could involve writing an essay or explanation that makes a case for why the student feels he or she should be rewarded credit. Even more options exist: the University could give credit to students only if they performed their duties for a certain amount of time — perhaps around the number of hours that a course would take up during a semester. Finally, if the University wanted to make sure students were not replacing their courses with summer internships, it could still give students course credit for these opportunities and jobs, but allow credits to be used only as supplements to coursework, rather than replacements. There are a variety of options here, but I feel that the University should consider at least one of them. A reformed or less rigid policy would allow us to pursue any opportunity we wanted, rather than having to automatically skip one offer after another — much as I had wished my professor skipped my introduction in class that day.