Over the last couple of weeks I’ve noticed a bit of a stir around the blogosphere, in the news and on Twitter about unpaid internships and the legality in them. For me, it all started with this article that details when an unpaid internship is illegal. I then started reading and participating in the discussion on Rachel’s blog about unpaid internships, and then on Twitter, Rachel pointed out this article and this article.

Have I linked to enough articles to make your head hurt yet? Let’s review.

The first article, is from the Examiner and it talks about when unpaid Marketing and Public Relations internships are illegal in the Washington, D.C. area. Basically, the article says that the intern should benefit but the company should not and that an intern should not be doing billable work.

The other three articles basically expand on this argument. I like what this article says. Basically (in a few more words), the author says that an internship depends on the circumstance but that unpaid internships are OK. However, companies should not be “hiring” interns to replace employees that they cannot pay.

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An internship was a requirement for my program so I did one last summer. Due to the economic climate last year, both me and my classmates had a lot of trouble finding internships. I approached a local PR/Marketing agency asking for an internship, unpaid, for the month of May. At the end of May my bosses offered to extend my internship for the duration of the summer, I became a part-time, paid employee. At the end of the summer they offered me a part-time paid job while I finish off my last two semesters of University and just recently, I was offered a full-time job when I graduate from my program in April.

My internship didn’t turn into a job because of my application, it turned into a job because I spent a month working with them and they liked me, saw that I was a hardworker and that I fit in well with the other people there. If this had been a paid internship it probably would have been a lot more competitive and I may not have been given the chance to prove myself to them.

Does it suck not earning a paycheck? Ya, it does. Some of my classmates took on full-time, unpaid internships for the entire five months of the summer. But you know what, this spring when we graduate, those of us with experience in the field are going to have a leg-up on the people who don’t have any.

I recently interviewed Anne Markey, the executive director of the Canadian Association of Career Educators and Employers, for a newspaper article and she told me this about experience:

“Take opportunities, take summer jobs, do internships, do co-ops, take any opportunity you can to get real-world experience and then make sure you are representing it properly on resumes and in your interviews.”

So, in my opinion, students shouldn’t be complaining about unpaid internships. They should be thankful for the opportunity.

What do you think about unpaid internships? Have you ever done one? Discuss in the comments.

For more information on what the Monday Meeting is, go here.

Last week we talked about the difference between a career and a job and several good points were brought up. A few people said that a career is a profession you’re in, for example, marketing. Whereas a job is the different jobs you hold over the years in that profession. For example, someone could have a career in marketing but hold several different marketing jobs at different companies over the course of 10 years.

So this week, let’s talk about how our thoughts/ideas on how our careers have changed over the years.

As most of you know, I am currently in my fourth year of university working my way towards my journalism degree. I entered this program thinking I probably wanted to be a reporter at a newspaper, I’m going to be leaving the program in six months knowing that’s not what I want to do at all.

I was given an amazing opportunity to work at a PR/Marketing agency during my time in school and now I know that the PR side of things is the way to  go for me. I still love writing and still do – and plan to continue – freelance writing on the side but I don’t see myself as a newspaper journalist anymore.

Ask me again in five years what I’m doing and what I want to be doing and I bet I’ll have changed my mind again and possibly doing something completely different. I think that’s part of having a career, it grows, changes and adapts as we do.

Lots of people do complete 360 career changes in their lifetime. When me and my mom went to that spa retreat back in June, one of our spa therapists told us that she used to be a biochemical engineer! After doing that for six years she was too stressed out and decided she wanted a less intense job. Talk about a major career change!

So, today in the comments, tell me about your career and if it has changed over the years. Has anybody done a complete career 360? What’s your opinion on career changes?

Don’t forget to check back for my replies to your comments and to leave replies on other comments. We’re having a meeting after all!

Hi guys, welcome to the first installment of The Monday Meeting.

This is the project that I’ve been working on for the past couple of weeks and it’s also the change that I alluded to a few weeks ago.

Every Monday we’re going to have a little meeting and the focus of every week is going to be about being a young professional and more specifically, the transition from being in college/university to being a young professional. I plan on having guest bloggers as well as talk about different studies, other blog posts, careers, work-life balance, advice, social media, online presence and many other things.

I really want to turn our weekly “meeting” into a conversation, so look for my replies to your comments in the comment section. Also, please feel free to leave more then one comment in reply to someone else so we can keep the discussion going; this is a meeting after all!

Basically, I want our “meetings” to grow and expand as our careers and lives grow and expand.

Before going onto today’s topic, if you think you would like to guest post for The Monday Meeting please don’t hesitate to contact me!

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I thought we’d start our first Monday Meeting by discussing our jobs and/or careers and what the difference is between a job and a career to us.

According to this article on Get Rich Slowly the distinction between a career and a job is artificial, every job we have is part of our career and over the course of our lifetimes, they all group together to form our career. Also, he points out that every job deserves our best effort.

While I agree with him that every job deserves our best effort (you never know when a bad reference is going to come back to haunt you), I don’t know if I agree that all the jobs we hold are part of our career.

For me, even though I’ve been working at “jobs” since I was 13, I feel like my career has just started. If I had to sum my career up in one word, I guess I would say writer, because that’s what I do and most importantly, what I want to do. I write newspaper articles, I write magazine articles , I write blogs, I write all kinds of different things at work.

Another way I differentiate a career from a job is by measuring the passion. Sure, I’ve had jobs I liked, even loved, but I’ve never had anything that I was as passionate about as my current career.

So, let’s discuss. Do you agree that the distinction between a job and career is artificial? Why or why not? What is your job OR career? If you could sum up what your career in one word, what would that word be?