Getting a Job, Part 1

Last week, Arianna Huffington graced the J-school with her presence as part of the Delacorte lecture series. I left before the Q&A, when an audience member inquired as to why Ms. HuffPo doesn’t pay her interns. I’m not sure what the response was, but I wonder if perhaps it simply doesn’t cross her mind that her interns – at least, those whom are not the offspring of her moneyed friends – need to be paid in order to live.

I first saw Ms. Huffington as an intern at Ms. Magazine nearly seven years ago when she was running for Governor of California and I was fresh out of undergrad.  At the time, I was perfectly satisfied taking an unpaid internship during the day and hostessing at a trendy cafe in Santa Monica at night to make ends meet. I’d scored a room in a rent-controlled apartment (10 blocks from the beach), I had saved my graduation money, and I knew it was only temporary. Besides, it would be worth if I got published (I did) and lead to a great – and undoubtedly paid – position down the road.

Fast forward seven years. Since then, I’ve freelanced for various publications (even once interviewing the mayor of Los Angeles for a small local paper) earned my masters in education, taught for four years including two at an international school in Istanbul, blogged about my travels, and got accepted to the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism, from where I will soon graduate. I still don’t have a job, and I’m no longer willing to work for free.

Some of my peers don’t either, but many are gainfully employed – including those fresh out of undergrad, who, while I’m certain are intelligent and qualified, have gone straight from their sheltered suburb to their sheltered liberal arts college to their great (if not great-paying) job. I, with my “life experience’  seem to have found myself in the same position I was straight out of undergrad: without the prospect of getting paid.

I decided to suck it up and troll around the Internet for unpaid internships. On the school’s job website, I found out that HuffPost Books seeks “a hard-working, web-savvy editorial intern with an interest in literature, reading, book publishing, and eBooks and the future of books” to serve as their books intern. Another opening, from Storycorps, was listed as paid, but at $55/week – a mere stipend for transportation and other incidentals – I don’t think it will cover rent.

I almost applied, but I just can’t. I guess I’m not yet desperate enough to work for free.