Too true...

One of my J-School friends found this article in the Winston-Salem Journal (my previous hometown) on unpaid internships, "Having interns work without pay is a shameful business practice." It resonated with me immediately. The first internship I had to turn down was a marketing internship for my hometown symphony, the Greater Lansing Symphony Orchestra, because it was an unpaid internship, and I had to earn money to help pay my way through college. This author is exactly right--students who are not wealthy are at a disadvantage because they cannot afford to take unpaid internships. Instead, I took an internship at Oldsmobile, where I learned about Human Resources, Finance, and Purchasing. It paid the college bills and I learned a lot, but I gave up that opportunity to learn about nonprofit marketing--mixing my two passions of music and business. I ended up learning about nonprofit marketing at a later age--when I could afford to volunteer my time. I even ended up teaching nonprofit marketing at Wake Forest University, but I never forgot having to give up that opportunity--just because I could not afford to take it.