LogFAQs > #965950322

COVxy posted...

If you're actually interested in my situation and what it looked like, I can talk to you about it. But my situation is not the point of the topic. The only reason i brought it up was because the other poster was attempting to suggest that it worked out for me because i'm privileged, and that's true in some respects (lots of luck and good mentorship), but the reality is that I entered that situation with very little resources, and fought like hell until I had them. I am an example that disproves the universal "unpaid internships only help the rich".

Though that statement is silly to begin with. Unpaid positions let people take risks on people they would otherwise pass up on. Paid positions are heavily filled with people who have already had opportunities.

Don't get me wrong, good on you for fighting like hell to get where you wanted to be. But you have to understand, what you went through, if true, is an absolutely absurd proposition that should NEVER be expected of anyone. What you're describing comes out to, at least, a 100 hour work week (40 for full time job, 40 for unpaid work, 20 for school), not even counting extras like any out-of-class work or study that your courses would have required.

The research is in that after roughly 32 work hours a week, most people's productivity starts to decline. After 50, it absolutely plummets. By 100 hours, you are reaching into actual physical and mental breakdown territory. Good on you for fighting through it, but that is absurd.

And you also have to recognize that a system like that will ALWAYS favor the well-off. Between a rich kid who can afford to focus on the unpaid work and nothing else, and the poor kid who has to work 100 hours a week, every week, running themselves into the ground just to get by, of COURSE the rich kid is in a far more favorable position. VERY few people will be willing to torture themselves like that, and even if they do, they'll almost always be outperformed by the group that isn't so grossly tapped out on energy and resources.