As an entrepreneur and full time real etaste investor I find the fact that anyone would suggest ending internships ironic and near absurd. Internships have been a staple of so many industries for so many years, and have launched the careers of many successful businesspeople in many industries. How many writers, radio announcers, and television personalities discovered their passion while working as an unpaid intern and went on to do wonderful things in their industry? The post above cites NY Times articles that target abuse that has occurred to interns in the past. Citing the exception rather than the norm makes for a poor argument. When we eliminate the abuse (in its many forms) that takes place in the common paid workplace we can point fingers at the intern industry and cite the source but until then, it’s a poor argument.My daughter is a college senior and will graduate this spring with a degree in elementary education. This last semester she will attend no classes at her university she is student teaching first graders at a local elementary school and GASP she is unpaid!On the contrary, not only is she unpaid, but I am PAYING some odd $20,000 this semester to allow her to work for free. Do I object? Certainly not one reason, is it’s the LAW that if she is to teach someday, she MUST work for free for a set amount of time before getting her license. She shows up every day, works for 7-9 hours and doesn’t get a check at the end of the week. It sounds a lot like an internship to me, with the exception she’s putting in a lot more hours than I imagine the average intern would. Is she being abused? Does she object? Is she being taken advantage of? Not in the slightest. In fact, she considers herself blessed to have the ability to work for free in this atmosphere as does thousands of budding student teachers all across the nation. Yes, she does a lot of the grunt-work for the teachers grading papers, cleaning up at the end of the day getting coffee and she loves every minute of it.I would venture to say that without having to stretch in the least, she indeed IS an intern who will be better prepared to go out into the working world, have practical experience, feel more confident, have connections she would not have had otherwise and and and.Internships may not be for everyone, but for those who choose to enter a program, it can be the springboard to their futures. Like most career decisions, it’s a choice, one that can have powerfully positive impacts not only on the intern but on the company they work for as well. Nick