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We just had a free engineering intern over the summer. The only thing that we could give him for work was to send him out as part of a survey crew.

Everyone thinks that you’d be stupid not to take free help. I can tell you that I saw a totally different side of that. You can’t just give an inexperienced person work and expect them to get it done.…[Read more]

Jon,
I’m less that 100 miles from Harvard, URI, and RISD. I can tell you for sure that there are several firms who roll in and roll out interns. Up until the last couple of years, they repeatedly advertised for 0-2 years experience. You can look at that as providing opportunity, or you can look at it as exploitation. Either way, most went on to…[Read more]

Craig,

You make a good point. Someone who is working retail or food service is going to invite assumptions about what they’ve been doing during school or since graduation. Before I landed an internship as a E&S plan reviewer, I worked, you guessed it, in a coffee shop for three years. I wasn’t doing a lot of extra thinking about LA since I was…[Read more]

i am just, mostly, playing devils advocate with you guys. I know there are no easy answers, no quick fixes. However, it does frustrate me seeing the lack of business knowledge much of the LA industry fronts. I mean seriously, if you’re going to run a business go to school for it, i mean that’s what you did for landscape architecture right?

I…[Read more]

There are federal laws that bar unpaid interns from working on billable projects. Doubt there’s any real enforcement, though

On the other hand, internships are so short and aren’t meant to supplement a firm’s employee needs. How many entry level positions do you think an intern could really displace?

I think internships should be seen by firms as an investment in the profession, not as a way to get work done cheaply or as a way to make it through tough times.

I still…[Read more]

earthworks, another truth to business is that there’s always money available, unfortunately most firm owners don’t want to grow their companies because they are happy with their existing size or they don’t have the business know how to successfully do so.

If the current way you’re running the firm isn’t getting new projects, is struggling to pay…[Read more]

Since they dropped the BLA, I’m not sure what the new requirement for internship/study abroad is. If the requirement is the same then I guess they have an extra year to find that company to hire them for a summer. I heard from someone in the Dean’s office a few weeks ago that Design Expo was way down in the number of firms hiring…not surprising,…[Read more]

Ha, ha! Yeah, let’s both move to Elko…

I can see your point. Ahh. Frustrating.

Thanks for your replies. I think I’ll go for two of the multiple choice sections for now. Good luck on section C Michelle!

Did (s)he pass in the Spring of 2000?

I agree with Earthworks. Offices don’t need big populations of creative designers within the ranks because as a percentage of the overall office hours most of the work is other than creative design work. That is not done by newer staff and interns. New staff is usually initially brought in to assist in production in order to free up more…[Read more]

Wyatt,

Our program also required that an internship be completed. Wasn’t there a few who didn’t get their diplomas until they had worked out of school for a few months? (They went to Italy and had trouble getting an internship in the summer before their 5th year)

Makes me wonder how the students are doing these days on that requirement

AR, you can’t hire young talent when you can’t even afford to pay the staff you have. A kid may be able to do great graphics but companies need employees who can do that and land new projects, manage them and not need hand-holding to make sure they don’t screw up. Young designers aren’t an investment right now. They are a liability. Sorry to say.

good discussion guys!

let me address a few points:

1) The data i’ve been studying has been collected from various sources as i stumble across it. There’s not one great place with this kind of information, so i am sure it’ll be worth my time someday.

2) I am on the verge of starting my own design build company but I am holding out to see how a…[Read more]

Add a copy of LandFX and SketchUP Pro and you will be well on your way!

best wishes

s.

I was certainly paid while I interned. And so were 95-100% of my classmates, even the ones working in quasi-public/public institutions. We also all got academic credit while we were working. Now maybe that’s unusual; maybe my college program was just awesome; maybe that doesn’t happen as often now that the industry is where it is. Regardless, my…[Read more]

It’s great to know that I can blow my top, write a page of almost incomprehensible jibber jabber and have other people articulate my frustration add to it and create an interesting conversation of it all.

I think what I’ve drawn from all your comments is this:

1.) I should be grateful for the success I have been afforded by geography,…[Read more]

sd