Taking an Unpaid Internship After Graduating

[GhostsBeforeBreakfast]

Hi, everyone. I was wondering how many of you took an unpaid internship after finishing your BA, specifically in a gallery.

Was this experience worth it and/or helpful for you? 

Do you think this experience helps in some way with MA and PhD graduate admissions?

Are there better options for work in the industry for new graduates that are paid?

I'm going to have to move back home to be able to do this and take a weekend job to make ends meet, so I'm just wondering if it's really worth it.

To me, it seems almost impossible to get the attention of a gallery or museum for a paid position when you're fresh out of undergrad, that's not an internship.

[fullofpink]

Internships are essential for networking and building your reputation. If you do a good job, there may be a possibility of the gallery hiring you once a position becomes available or recommending you to someone else if they find a position available. I did not work in a gallery, but I did intern in a museum and my intern supervisor (curator) hooked me up with positions (freelance and, eventually, full time), which opened up other more lucrative opportunities. He was also the one to call his colleagues at prestigious institutions to recommend me for paid internships/fellowships. 

 

There are people in my graduate department who only have gallery intern experience. They are in graduate school, so I suppose you say it worked out well for them. 

 

I interned and worked a part-time job before getting hired full time. Everyone makes ends meet when they must; it's when you realize that you aren't happy doing this that you should step out. If you are happy, continue! 

[RP15]

I'm not a fan of unpaid internships. Very rarely do companies truly lack the funds to pay an intern. They have the money, they just find it very attractive to claim that offering you an internship is such a privilege for you because of the experience you'll gain, and so therefore you shouldn't get paid. Any company can do this - just open your doors and accept anyone without pay, the position will get filled either way. The truth is, they do benefit greatly from interns. They go on to get experience and often become the new generation of employers of the company. The company is worthless without its workers, and offering unpaid internships demonstrates a lack of appreciation of this fact.

 

You're doing labor, you're getting things done that a paid employee would otherwise do. You're taken advantage of for free 

 

Take the internship or leave it, it is up to you. You'll gain valuable experience, true. But personally I don't wouldn't want to do work for free, even if it's something you enjoy.

Edited July 31, 2014 by RP15

[fullofpink]

I'm not a fan of unpaid internships. Very rarely do companies truly lack the funds to pay an intern. They have the money, they just find it very attractive to claim that offering you an internship is such a privilege for you because of the experience you'll gain, and so therefore you shouldn't get paid. Any company can do this - just open your doors and accept anyone without pay, the position will get filled either way. The truth is, they do benefit greatly from interns. They go on to get experience and often become the new generation of employers of the company. The company is worthless without its workers, and offering unpaid internships demonstrates a lack of appreciation of this fact.

 

You're doing labor, you're getting things done that a paid employee would otherwise do. You're taken advantage of for free 

 

Take the internship or leave it, it is up to you. You'll gain valuable experience, true. But personally I don't wouldn't want to do work for free, even if it's something you enjoy.

^

 

RP15, the museum world is mostly nonprofit and rarely have extra funds to offer. Paid internships are highly competitive with the Met receiving over a 1000 applications for a handful of positions. Galleries are a different category because they may be for profit, but the internisship experience is standard practice for our major.  

[TonyB]

As long as the internship consists of more than doing "scutwork" (filing paperwork, moving boxes, etc.) you should probably do it, provided you feel there are some real connections/real professional development to be made. Too many companies get that free labor out of an intern -- basically doing the crap paid employees don't WANT to do -- but don't give them enough actual real-world professional experience to make it worth the trouble.

[highpriestess]

I had a similar situation - I moved back home after I graduated so that I could apply for grad school and save money.  I ended up doing two unpaid internships and my advice would be to do it.  Unfortunately, unpaid internships just seem to be a fact of life now.  I know people who majored in things like finance and architecture who still have to do unpaid internships, so us art history majors are not alone.  However, I would temper my pro-unpaid internship advice with this: don't limit yourself to the art world.  My first internship was at a pretty good museum (not like the MET or something, but still well regarded), and after a few months I decided that it just wasn't what I wanted.  You will probably find out that, because you aren't a paid employee, your internship isn't going to entrust you to do too much real work.  It was almost all paperwork and, like, sending invitations to donors for events.  So I decided to switch to an internship where I was teaching English to refugees for a non-profit organization.  I can tell you hands down that when I was applying for grad school and doing the interviews my universities were much more interested in the work I was doing with refugees than my museum internships.  As a bonus, all of my students were from the Congo and I was able to practice my French skills with them, which was a great addition to my application.  

 

Basically, I would just say that you shouldn't limit yourself to a gallery or museum, because they will very likely use you as unpaid labor.  The connections could be worthwhile, but I wouldn't rely on that.  Doing something outside of the art world could give you an edge.

[condivi]

For the PhD, I don't think internships really matter. Professors care about your academic work--your potential to be a productive scholar. Pushing paper around for a gallery won't help you, and if you're not getting paid then I would say don't do it. Now, if you can work for a museum and do real work--i.e. research, maybe some writing--then that might be useful. Especially if you can get a good rec from a curator you worked closely with. But that kind of internship should be paid. As said above, getting a research language (or two) as good as you can will help you stand out most.

[GhostsBeforeBreakfast]

Thank you for the replies. I ended up taking it and, although I had to make a few sacrifices to make it work, I think it's worth it. I do feel exploited in certain situations but I am also learning skills that I believe will be highly beneficial in the future, in terms of actually working, not so much for academia. I am involved with tasks that excite me and that's what really matters.

Also, I may also be taking an internship at the Guggenheim but the department that contacted me for an interview is not one of the three departments I said I was interested in. What's worse is that it's a department that I have paid work experience in, Visitor Services. I'm struggling to see how this would be beneficial to me and how it is not somewhat degrading to work in that department unpaid, especially with my paid background experience. Does it seem worth it? 

Edited August 29, 2014 by SheisStellar

[smorkriz]

I don't know; I think it depends on the institution and networking opportunities, but I'm generally wary of unpaid positions. You can always negotiate (a friend of mine was offered an internship, but he convinced them to at least pay him $8/hr, which in NYC is not much).

 

Also, I'd probably target internships that give you more responsibility rather than bitch work. 

 

My two cents. 

[TonyB]

WHY would you take an unpaid internship if it's not even going to provide you with new experience? Visitor Services -- sounds like you're going to be a glorified front desk clerk. I say skip it.

[GhostsBeforeBreakfast]

Yeah, I skipped the visitor services internship.

The initial internship has its ups and downs but the art handling and registrar experience is really great. They do pay fully for my transportation (almost $400 a month) and lunch, so it could be worse.

It honestly can't hurt my CV as well.

Hopefully between December and graduate school, if I get in, I will find something paid and rewarding.


 

Edited October 5, 2014 by SheisStellar

[brown_eyed_girl]

I did an unpaid museum internship (on top of paid work at a gallery) while in school and for a few months thereafter, but I was enticed to do the internship because I was told there was a full-time job prospect (curatorial Research Assistant) for me down the line (which there was). I wouldn't do an unpaid gallery internship unless there is a promise of job openings down the line, or unless you can't find anything else in your field and need to build your resume.

 

That said, this is coming from someone for whom moving home to take an unpaid gig post-grad was not an option. In light of that fact, I hustled a lot during UG to find relevant paid work, and made a 100-mile round-trip commute on the weekends to work at a gallery that offered me a job just to build that experience. I didn't have much social life, but I did build up decent paid experience in the art world before graduation and therefore wouldn't have felt that I had anything to gain from an unpaid gallery gig.   

[GhostsBeforeBreakfast]

The bottom line is that I did it and it was worth it because it was a very respectable place to intern post-grad.