Compensation
by Anderson Tuggle '14
OPINION WRITER
Many things exist at Hamilton that warrant some kind of reform; our lack of a Middle-Eastern Studies program and our ever-changing alcohol policy both come to mind. The Career Center’s summer internship credit policy, however, is not one of these attention-grabbing faults.
The Career Center has a fair process to obtain credit for internships and, on top of that, gives out various grants to aid students with unpaid internships. At least 11 different funds, spread across the disciplines, allow students to apply for financial assistance to help them with the hefty costs associated with unpaid summer internships. Moreover, the Career Center helps students find housing when they intern out of town, provides general guidance and suggests many excellent internship opportunities through valuable resources such as HAMnet. The success of Hamilton graduates comes in part from the Career Center’s quality work with undergraduate internships. In my opinion, it seems that there is little to complain about.
Yet, some people have still said that Hamilton does not do enough, particularly in terms of giving sufficient internship credit. I do not know what else they could do regarding credit; the process is simple and easily accessible via the Career Center and its website.
A student must apply, make a responsibility agreement with his or her employer and work at least 50 hours in order to gain the mandated recognition from the College. That sounds reasonable enough to me, especially considering these extremely lenient requirements.
While this credit is worth only one-quarter of a point on one’s transcript and does not count toward graduation, that should not matter. One does an internship mostly to gain experience, perhaps earn some money and help decide on a suitable career path. Fulfilling graduation requirements early is secondary to obtaining an essential work experience. After all, most companies refuse to hire college graduates without some sort of internship experience.
As a liberal arts college, internships should complement the classes taken at Hamilton, not replace them. Most colleges only give out credit because it is illegal to work “for free.” And, as I mentioned earlier, Hamilton helps finance some internships, which is more important than giving out small doses of credit, whether that credit counts towards graduation or not.
Most importantly, if an employer sees the credit or experience one has from interning, they will reward them for it. Admittedly, stories probably exist about bad experiences in obtaining credit from Hamilton, but those situations require individual fixing, not a wholesale policy change.
At the end of the day, Hamilton’s main task is to give students a high-quality education and ensure they have the opportunity for gainful employment after graduation. The College can further these goals by assisting students in finding and funding internships, but internship credit need not be counted toward graduation.
Hamilton is an academic institution, and, as such, is not responsible for compensating for the faults of cheap employers. Especially in a struggling economy where the opportunities for paid internships are few and far between, Hamilton is doing its absolute best to accomodate and advocate for its students’ current and future interests by facilitating and encouraging us to pursue possible career options.
By providing internship information, doling out financial assistance when needed and giving non-graduation credit to those who seek it, Hamilton gives interning students a great deal of assistance. Further recognition is beyond the role that Hamilton need play. As the old adage goes, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”
Recognition
by Charlotte Hough '14
OPINION CONTRIBUTOR
By offering a broad liberal arts education, Hamilton gives its students a chance to explore a vast array of academic disciplines. The College also seeks to help prepare students for life after college. But shouldn’t these goals go hand-in-hand? By not rewarding students with meaningful credit for summer internships, the College marks a stark separation between education and workplace experience, placing more value on the former.
At Hamilton, the Career Center helps students find summer internships to help them gain experience in the workplace. This experience is critical in making students competitive in the job market after college. According to David Bell, the senior associate director of the Career Center, approximately 84 percent of Hamilton students will have at least one internship before graduation. But also according to Bell, the majority of these internships will be unpaid.
The availability of paid internships is limited, especially in industries such as communications and government. It is a systemic problem that Hamilton and many other liberal arts colleges have to cope with.
Though internship experiences are largely valuable because of the skills they allow students to acquire, some sort of compensation for such hard work is still necessary. The United States Department of Labor, realizing this, has established regulations regarding the circumstances in which students can work for a for-profit organization without pay.
The internship must benefit the student and be “viewed as an extension of the individual’s educational experience” under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA). This often leads employers to require that students obtain credit from their colleges or universities as recognition of the work they have done.
Hamilton has a policy for awarding students internship credit, but the credit awarded has little practical meaning. Based on a letter of evaluation sent to the College by a student’s internship supervisor, the Committee on Academic Standing will potentially award a student one quarter of a credit. The problem is that this fractional credit does not count toward students’ graduation requirements.
By rewarding students useless credit, the College does succeed in satisfying a formality outlined by the FLSA. The College does not, however, adequately recognize students for their work. The current policy for internship credit sends a message that students’ work in this realm is not worthy of true recognition, let alone actual compensation.
The whole idea seems paradoxical. The only way students can explore unpaid internship opportunities is if these internships are classified as an extension of their education. But Hamilton will not recognize them as such.
A more valued credit for internships should be a reasonable possibility, considering that service learning is already incorporated in some courses. Education 201, for example, teaches students about tutoring English to speakers of other languages, and combines both lecture hours and field study or service learning hours toward credit for the course. Education Studies and Psychology students can also work for New England Childcare Center to gain credit toward their major.
The current process of rewarding credit for internships is relatively hands-off. Before an internship is approved to receive credit, Career Counselors will talk to students about the specific tasks they will complete and the benefit they will take from them. Students submit this information in writing to the Dean of Students Office, and during the internship they submit a solidified list of these responsibilities. These pieces of information, along with the final evaluation submitted by the internship supervisor, are the only documentation Hamilton receives about students’ summer work. Therefore, it may be hard for Hamilton to decide exactly how “educational” the experience will be and how much credit each individual student merits.
Hamilton does offer summer internship funding. However, the funding is limited and sometimes insufficient. The cost of a summer internship can be staggering: Between transportation, living costs and professional attire, an exciting opportunity can become a major expense for many students.
Maybe what is needed is a slightly more hands-on approach from the administration, in exchange for an award of credit that actually means something. Until then, Hamilton, like many other colleges, fails to recognize students’ work in many out of classroom settings, such as the summer internship. Though individual departments have made their own exceptions, it is time for a larger movement to incorporate experience into students’ education with valid recognition.
Since the policies of the internship providers are out of our control, the only solution left that is within our domain is for the College to adjust its policy. Students work long and strenuous hours to gain work experience. Hamilton should recognize these efforts beyond the minimal FLSA mandates.