If you have been a student of a higher institution of learning, or you are a student currently, chances are that you served as an intern at one time or the other. This is something that is required by most academic bodies.
First of all, who is an intern?
This is basically a person that works in an organization for a limited period of time. They are not considered to be employees and therefore do not have the same workload as a full employee nor the benefits.
The internship is very important, especially in the life of a student, because it trains you for a life outside of the classroom in your chosen field of endeavor.
During the internship, you get to practicalize all that you have thought and see everything happen physically. You will be given a hands-on approach to the various tenets that are involved in your particular field.
I am studying Electrical Engineering at a polytechnic. I remember during my National Diploma days, after my first year I had to go for a compulsory four months of Intensive Training (IT). I chose to do it in the Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN), which is the government organization that is in charge of transmitting power from the generating station to the distributing station.
Working there, I learned a lot of things as an upcoming engineer. Things that I had been taught in school as well but they had never really stuck simply because it was only theory. To understand any engineering course properly, a lot of practicals are needed. I was not getting that in my school but I was definitely seeing a lot of it at the transmitting station.
I learned how to read currents and voltage, monitor the feeders, and know what part of the national grid was in a blackout. These are things that really helped me out in my second year in school because the information I had learned came in handy.
But there was a downside to it all, I was not paid.
And this brings me to the main point of my post. Should interns be paid?
I do not know about the rest of the world, but in Nigeria, ninety percent of interns do it pro bono. This is a big reason many of us choose not to do it and then lie to our lecturers that we did it.
Although when you think of it, the interns are not really there to do anything. They are just there to observe and learn while experts are doing the jobs, and if it is safe they will also do some themselves as well.
This was how it was for me at TCN, seeing as electricity can be a really dangerous force, the interns were not allowed to do any major work where it was concerned. It was during that time that I found out that all of them had health insurance. It was compulsory. So that in the event of an accident while working, the insurance company would take care of it for you.
Back then, I remember asking them to let me get on some feeders for operations, and they were like, “no, you do not have any insurance.”
And because of this, we were stuck with doing boring jobs like cleaning transformers, holding tools while the experts worked, or helping them run some quick calculations on maths or physics while they worked.
We were not doing any major work, but still… we should have been paid!
For some, the story is entirely different.
Becoming an intern in some companies, especially these private ones, they will literally turn you into a full staff but without the pay. You will work to your bones and all they will tell you is thank you. When you are done with the IT some will even demand that you celebrate you're going away by buying them soft drinks and snacks with your money. If you do not do this, they would not sign your logbook. There has to be a law against things like these.
Image by ThisIsEngineering RAEng
Even for me, the location of the transmitting station was quite far, so I had to spend quite a lot on transport and while I was there I had to eat. All these things were coming out of my own purse. So a little amount of money, even if it was just to cover the cost of transport alone would have been appreciated.
Interns are grossly underappreciated, and that is a trend that needs to stop at once. When a student applies to a company, requesting to run their IT there, if the company chooses to accept them, they should also be willing to pay them a stipend as well. This is to motivate them to come regularly and even make them want to work more.
So, my dear friends, what do you think about this post? Do you also believe that interns should be paid? Or they should just learn what they are there to learn and go back to their school? Please let me know in the comment section, I would really love to get your opinions on this.
Image by ThisIsEngineering RAEng
Thank you for reading, till we meet in the next post.
P.S: My school had also promised to pay all of us IT students some stipend. They had even taken our account numbers and promised us it would come. Well, that was a few years ago and I am still yet to get that alert. I guess something must be terribly wrong with their network. I hope it comes through soon though because I am broke.
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