Paid or not, an internship is what you make of it, Chelsey Engelhard says.

“Unpaid internships aren’t always a bad thing,” the senior in strategic communication and international studies said.

Engelhard, a communication and content intern at The Arts Partnership, began her unpaid internship in January for credits toward her major. Despite no paycheck, she said the all-around experience, networking and flexibility of her position more than make up for money.

“It just depends on the individual company that you go to. It’s more than if it’s paid or unpaid,” Engelhard said. “There are more factors to consider.”

Value

Annie Wood, Emerging Prairie’s director of community programs, said no matter the internship, what does matter is what interns are able to contribute and get out of their positions.

“I think internships are valuable because they put a student in a position to work on a problem with an organization that actually needs to solve that problem,” she said.

Emerging Prairie is a nonprofit aimed at connecting and growing Fargo-Moorhead’s entrepreneurs and startups. The company is also a major promoter of area internships with online listings and events through 1 Million Cups, a weekly event the shares ideas and connects its participants.

“We believe in the value that young people can bring to the company and what can happen with short bursts of energy,” Wood said.

Andrew Jason took an internship at Spotlight Media five years ago, and today is the publication outlet’s editorial director.

“I had no idea how (my unpaid internship) would turn out,” he said. “I got a full-time career out of it.”

Wood added that Fargo is a virtual garden for startups and interns. A Minot, N.D., native herself, Wood said Emerging Prairie wants interns to “see Fargo as a viable option when they graduate.”

“I think there’s a real power that Fargo has to attract interns,” she added, highlighting Fargo’s events, culture and downtown as draws for young people.

TedxFargo, farmers’ markets, art galleries and midnight brunch events are all examples, Wood said.

“Fargo’s building a culture of what do you do besides go to work and go home?” she said.

Paid or not

Jason said Spotlight Media used to offer unpaid internships for usually a semester, but under Operation Intern, the company is now paying its interns.

Operation Intern is a workforce development through the state of North Dakota that will reimburse private businesses up to $30,000 every two years to fund company internships. Students who are interns can earn up to $3,000 in Operation Intern positions.

The move to paying internships was from many reasons, Jason said, but partly because “I believe unpaid internships are technically illegal in the state of North Dakota.”

The Spectrum called the North Dakota Attorney General’s Office to inquire about the legality of unpaid internships, but was told that was “an individual legal question” and to contact a personal attorney.

Otherwise, Jason said quality of work generally improves with paying interns.

“(Operation Intern) has been a big help to us as a company,” he said.

Engelhard said the perks of her unpaid internship include networking as 150 area organizations are TAP partners.

“Networking opportunities are another great thing you get from it, and since it’s a nonprofit, nonprofits have to do a little bit of everything,” she said. “I’m writing for their blog and I’m writing for their newsletter … and I’m also calendaring for them as well.”

Jason said Spotlight Media interns also dabble in most everything from magazine writing to fact checking to web content.

“I think depending on what people’s majors are, I think internships are almost a must,” he said.

‘Overwhelming’ 

Hannah Andring graduated last December with a degree in English education, and looking back on her unpaid student teaching, it was “great experience,” she said, but stressful.

Andring taught for 10 weeks at Fargo North High School and for six weeks at West Fargo High School.

“Essentially, student teachers are working a full-time job in addition for hours of homework every night, not to mention all the extra work teaching itself demands,” she said. “Between grading and planning and the work that went along with the class, there were a lot of late nights that semester.”

She added she had to add a part-time job last fall to afford her rent and groceries–something her program advises against doing.

“It just got overwhelming towards the end, trying to make it all work,” Andring said. 

While she wasn’t paid for student teaching, Andring added she and a friend calculated that they spent $63 every time they entered the high schools.

“We paid almost $4,500 for the credits and we spent 70 to 72 days in the classroom depending on the district we were placed in,” she said. 

Andring added she may have felt bitter because her brother was earning $18 hourly at his mechanical engineering internships, but the student teacher experience wasn’t rosy all around.

“I understand why student teaching would be unpaid but at the same time it was not a fun five months,” she said.