But, how long could you afford to commute, bringing your lunch, paying for gas, insurance, car payments, clothing, utilities, rent and everything else when your pay is ZERO?
Now, if the pay was Minimum Wage; I agree.
But, when a person is “forced” to work for nothing, then we have legalized slavery. I see this as a very bad thing.
The way you had your internship, is the way that internships were designed to be. Menial tasks to judge your mettle, prove yourself worthy of the investment of time and effort for advanced training - then the opportunties opened up.
Even back in the day of Apprentenceships, the apprentice was paid something. Even board and room is better than ZERO.
Good questions. I suppose many of today's students would use student loan money, which is a bad answer, I do admit. Were I not paid, I couldn't have done it.
I do think that no one is "forced" to take these internships; they are still voluntary. If I were a student, I would definitely look for a different job with pay, even if I couldn't claim it as an "iternship" assignment. Then, I would look to learn whatever business I was in, to gain as much knowledge about business concepts.
Whether that's in retail, construction, whatever. Learn about book-keeping and accounting, learn about the IT systems, learn about inventory management. If you worked at McDonald's, but could legitimately say that you took on additional assignments to manage inventory, or that you produced weekly and monthly sales' reports, that will catch someone's eye on a resume. Of course, you'd better be the best fryman at that franchise before you ask for additional work.