Can u believe, four years of earning a degree to find that the only fulfilling work that you are currently doing is your unpaid internship, and that too is unfulfilling. Like the unpaid intern, we too function independently in an organization that does not always support us financially. As the modern world comes to light, it seems as if financial independence is the biggest factor to living successfully, but what happened to pursuing life for the benefit of living. Most people have the luxury to pursue life while also being a slave to their 9-5, so how does that balance fester in day-to-day life.

Sitting at a desk which has been my most consistent space rather than my own bed it seems as if the work/play balance merges into one odd function of life. Being a fresh graduate, I still have a lot of time to explore before accepting the impending doom of the 9-5. But what if there was a caveat to this looming presence of corporate lifestyle. Secluded in an office space, hearing conversations pass and loud clicking of keyboards it doesn’t seem as if there is much to achieve rather than the “work” which has function but seems pointless in the grand scheme of things. It seems as if there is more to achieve, but the wall I am trying to find requires equipment which I haven’t discovered yet.

Being an unpaid intern might seem like a story you might share with those when feeling lost and unsure about your future, but those experiences contribute to a lot more than you might think. An internship is one of the lowest professional positions in a company, but the value of an internship is observing the function of an organization from a microenvironmental perspective. Your tasks may be menial and of little to no substance, or your projects may be big and time consuming but at the end of the day most of an intern’s time is spent observing interactions. And this skill is one which many people lack, the art of noticing, the art of observation. A slave to technology is the most common term I have seen being used to describe newer generations of people but where are the most important observations made; offline.

Now, I am not encouraging you to shut off your laptop and avoid your projects and learning opportunities, but for those interns that are stuck doing work that does not present learning opportunities, I say, maybe look around and see what your organization could improve on. Conduct your own analysis on internship programs, find ways to spend your time rather than waiting around for work to do, or a task to be given. The unpaid intern might be the most crucial step in your learning experience, even if that experience is not at all what you hoped for.

So why discredit the internship if it rather teaches you how you CAN find that work/life balance through observation. Society focuses on the financial value of any work conducted, when rather if we shift our focus to the value of our life and involvement in a company, we can find that wall we face a bit easier to climb with tools that we didn’t know had value.

An experience that you might not think brought you any benefit might just open doors for you that were not present before, so don’t deny the opportunity to explore even as an unpaid intern.