I did the same thing to get a job as a deck hand.
Tell a kid today that they will work for nothing for a couple of month before the make good money and they will laugh at you.
Early on within the company from which I eventually retired, I received permission to come back in without pay to help another department that was understaffed but an area in which I really wanted to work. A year later when an opening was posted, they asked me to fill it and I did.
I do believe that working for free stuff is the same as the thousands that bust their asses in real educational programs to earn advanced degrees.