1995_04 Insight April 1995

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Editorial
APIUl 5,1995
EDITOl
Internships: Slave
labor in disguise?
An internship - the ultimate experience. Or is it? Is the
value being placed on how much the intern will leam,
or are employers taking advantage of free or cheap
labor?
The sole purpose of an internship is to gain knowledge of a particular profession. Many students apply for internships to gain job
experience. In reality, day after day, interns are accepted at companies nationwide, but are not getting what they bargained for.
In many instances interns are required to perform menial tasks
such as answering the telephone, making copies, running errands,
typing and fetching coffee.
For duties such as these, companies should hire secretaries and
receptionists. An internship is of no use to the intern if he or she is
not learning new skills.
Both interns and future employers expect that upon the completion of an internship the individual should have an understanding of
what a professional job will entail.
Employers often hire individuals because they've had internship
experience. But this experience doesn't guarantee an individual will
be competent enough to fulfill an employer's job expectations.
Students should not accept internships with blinders on. There are
plenty of internships that offer adequate work experience. In many
instances interns are considered professional staff members, often
taking the place of an employee on vacation.
Employers have nothing to lose. Students are constantly hunting
for work experience, and employers are always looking for a way
to save money. The equation shouldn't be: internship = slave labor.
It seems obvious that if interns are willing to work for next to nothing, it's because they're motivated and want to learn as much as
possible about their future profession. Why else would they work
for free?
Students are willing to accept internships without pay because they
want to get a feel for what they eventually plan to do. If their plan
was to type and make copies, they could get paid a respectable
amount of money to do so elsewhere.
It seems employers are exploiting unpaid interns. By offering to
pay someone, employers are taking full advantage of what that individual can do for their company. They expect the person to be a
professional member of their staff, therefore, the individual is getting what they expected.
On the other hand, when a company does not compensate their
interns, they're getting more than they're paying for. No matter what
the task, the company is receiving free labor. This is the reason why
so many interns are getting stuck doing lame jobs the establishment
would otherwise have to pay someone to do.
An internship can be the key to landing a job after graduation, but
not if it doesn't offer the individual the full benefits available. There
are plenty of internships that will provide the professional experience required in the first stages of an individual's career, but careful
consideration should be taken before making a decision.
An internship applicant and employer should discuss and come to
an agreement on what benefits the internship will provide for both
of them.
Interns are trying lo get their feet in the door and employers should
make a conscious effort to let them in.
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On Campus: Managing Editor, Insight     Call 278-2892
Insight
CALIFORNIA STATE UNIVERSITY, FRESNO
Executive Editor    Samantha K. Pease
Managing Editor
Deputy Managing Editor
Chief Copy Editor
News Editor
Photo Editor
Graphics Editor
Lifestyle Editor
Sports Editor
Circulation Manager
Design Coordinator
Jacqueline Tucker
Jefferson Beavers
Sheryl Logue
Rachel Rosemire
Kori Rianda
Kimberly Darling
Marianne Chrisman
Robbie Miner
Yi Ping Ho
Marga Kellogg
Deborah Smith
Lorena Campbell
Advertising Account Mgr.
Advertising Production Mgr.
Advertising Line: 278-3934
Staff Photographers:
Dan Helmbold, Lilian Meza and Christine Mirigian
Production Assistants:
Adrienne Boman, Stacey Dipple, Laurie Gibson,
Dawn Henley, Ju Chen Hsieh, Janet Soules, Abel Torres,
Kimberly Williams and Robert Williamson.
surff Writ*™ Adviser Advertising Staff
Students of Paul Adams Students of
MCJ 102W & 103 r™" AUM18 MCJ 143
OPINION
Prizes-by-mail a joke in disguise
By Melissa Haverty
StaffWriler
Congratulations! You
are the grand prize
winner.Yeah right!
Read the fine print
and you'll find out
you really aren't.
Lately I seem to be on several
sweepstakes mailing lists. I get at
least one envelope of prize information weekly, and I wonder if there
are people who actually buy
into this stuff.
I received a letter today telling me I won a I-carat Diamond CZ, cubic zirconia that
is, and it will be mailed to
me right away. Wow! I can
hardly wait. I'm sure I'll be
the envy of all thc girls. To
own a real cubic zirconia.
Pull out the champagne everyone, this calls for a celebration!
Of course I have to answer
several questions in order to receive this luxurious prize.
They want my phone number and
social security number. I don't think
so.
All I need is phone calls from
these people. The junk mail is
enough.
The humorous part is they want
S19 for a transfer-deposit fee to have
the diamond mounted. Oh, excuse
me, 1 mean the cubic zirconia,
which is then made into a ring, a
pendant or some other form of jewelry.
On top of that there's a S2.70 shipping and handling charge and a
$1.00 charge for security replace-
No
ment insurance.
All for a cubic zirconi
thanks.
These sweepstakes people claim
thc cubic zirconia in a ladies' ring
me. If that's true, why are they announcing it to the world on the envelope? Because it isn't!
When I started reading it. I discovered 1 had to return something to be
setting of triple thick, I4K gold    placed in a drawing,
electroplate   is   worth This one had to be thc one that
$ 3 , 1 5 9 . O f -      made me laugh the hardest. It said
course ^. "0*.\    the sweepstakes was created to
publicize thc maker's product
line. They indicated 1 had to
order two products from the
enclosed cards advertising
the products.
Do I really need a microwave egg boiler, rug tape, a
swivel seat for my car, an
amazing bionic cooker, or
a pair of "genuine suede
leather" driving moccasins
just to be entered in a
sweepstakes? No way!
That's how they make their
money. They try tomfool people into
believing they've stumbled on the
chance of a lifetime.
But, if you haven't entered anything, then how is it that all of a sudden you're in line to win a large
amount of cash?
ing. And where did they get your
So what does that mean? That in name if you didn't give it to them?
actuality it really doesn't cost that Probably from thc list all the other
much? junk-mail people get it from.
Hey, why not a real diamond if it I have never believed one of
costs that much? I suppose if I were those mailed sweepstakes notices
less than intelligent I might think, and probably never will. Until
"Gee! Can you believe that? I won a they drive up to my house in a
diamond, and I'm just plain lucky!" sweepstakes van and hand mc a
I received another sweepstakes check personally, with no strings
envelope the same day. This one    attached, then I've got better
then
; a small
asterisk placed after
the price indicating it is a
comparable jeweler's price using a
mined diamond and similar mount-
I has
money du(
iAK YOUR MIND
What is your ideal spring break?
Andrea Hardy
Mark Payne
Elizabeth Tapia
"Going down to Cancun for a week "Just sitting back doing nothing. No •To spend a whole week in a place
and just raging the whole time with school, no nothing. Just enjoying thc where I'd never been and with people
lots of friends and meeting lots of new   sun." I don't know."
people. Everybody would be in bathing suits running around drinking
margaritas."
Thao Seng Marisa Kono
"Camping. I need to go somewhere 'To go somewhere and not run into
and relax, get out the anxiety and all anybody I know, like Daytona Beach
that" or Lake Havasu in Arizona."
Dallas Richie
'To go to Florida and visit with my
friends I played football with in junior college and hang out in Fort Lauderdale."
Empty seats
don't mean
empty minds
Teachers should discourage stereotypes, not encourage them.While
most will deny it, professors at Fresno State unfairly punish
student-athletes with policy rules
that make attendance part of their
grade evaluations.
Every athlete at one time or another
has had to drop a ^^^^^^^^^
class for this reason.   Teachers _^^^^^^^_
who mark down [fl
on grades be- H
cause of atten- H
dance refuse to H
take the athlete's H
obligation to his ■§
sport into consid- H
eration.
This may not ¥ ^H
soundstereotypi- R ...
cal. because, af- gg*jL
tcrall.uieuniver- MINER
sity loses money Sports Editor
when students
are not in class. But it's that very issue of money which makes these
policies unfair.
The majority of Fresno State athletes are on scholarship; the university is paying them to play sports.
In that respect, athletes are being
asked by the university to place athletics over academics.
This may not always be the case,
but this is where the dumb jock stereotype arises.
Students see the athlete's empty
chair in class and automatically
make assumptions. What most
people don't realize or don't even
care to consider is that athletes are
forced to miss many of their classes
because of constant road trips
throughout their sport's season.
Stereotypes also emerge because
people see that athletes' grade point
averages are generally lower than
those of other students. When athletes are on the road all the time and
can't attend half of their classes,
how can they be expected to achieve
the same educational status as the
average student?
In addition, thc average athlete at
Fresno State spends 12 to 20 hours
a week practicing for their respective sports even when they are in
Fresno. This occupies time that
could be used for studying. Their
physical exhaustion decreases the
efficiency of the time they do have
to spend with the books.
Sure, there are athletes that
couldn't give a rat's ass about their
grades, but for each of those athletes, there are several others that
care greatly about getting their degrees.
The tennis team has	
The track team has	
The volleyball team has	
Last    year,    Fresno    State
honored students for receiving a
3.0 GPA or higher.  of those had
GPAs over 3.5.
Darren Fralcy, an All-WAC pole
vaulter, spends more than 20 hours a
week devoted to his sport and still maintains a perfect 4.0 GPA. And that's with
the obstacle of teacher stereotypes.
When are teachers at this university
going to stop being stubborn and start
treating the athlete with the same respect as any other student? Does that
mean giving athletes permission to
miss class, while not giving the same
privileges to other students?
Of course not. The solution is just
to make attendance a non-issue in
determining grades.
After all, this is college, not high
school. The student is paying for his
education - he should have the decision of how to make use of it.
Part of the idea of college is to prepare students for life after school.
They can either take control of their
lives and make the best of their tuition fees or they can flake off and
let the money go down the drain. If
students skip classes, they will feel
the consequences when they get
their test results back. There's no
need to punish them further.
Part of the maturing process of college is learning to organize priorities.
And many students, not just athletes,
have other priorities that sometimes
make it difficult to attend class. If
teachers refuse to take notice of this,
they are allowing their stubborn pride
to get in the way of common sense.
To all teachers that still use attendance
policies: wake up.
This is college.