At Leave UR Mark, we work on different ways of accommodating students and those on budgets that really need financial assistance in going abroad and paying for program fees, airfare costs, and in-country support costs. Unlike many study abroad programs, internships abroad with us can be flexible so that people can get short-term experiences such as 3 or 4 weeks for those that cannot afford several months. We offer discounts for signing up with friends (something the study abroad field does not do), discounts for blogging, offer full-time paid positions to some of our students who want to come back after their internships, and provide personalized attention to help people fundraise. We have rarely had interns that are privileged or that take the internships as a ticket into just putting things on their resume. There are plenty of those that cannot afford study abroad programs and thus use interning abroad as a more affordable and flexible alternative. So we would argue that studying abroad can be for those that have higher levels of income whereas interning abroad can be done for a lot cheaper. A typical Study Abroad program for example can run around $13,000 with housing for 4 months. The Leave UR Mark Intern Abroad program runs around $3,889 with housing and food for 4 months.

A few Leave UR Mark volunteers participate in a cooking class with a local Indian Aunty.

“It had its ups and down,” she said. And she found her homestay, in a couple’s Paris apartment, less than ideal. The couple argued a lot and sometimes served frozen meals. At night she had to walk past an unlit park on the way home from the Metro.

This quote is from the article stating the negative experience of an intern who worked in Paris. We don’t feel that companies that provide internships abroad are the reasons for these kinds of issues. People argue over meals all the time. Students cannot expect that if they are staying with a family that the homelife is going to be 100% happy all the time. Students are entering into people’s homes and lives and if there is an argument at home, there is an argument. These are issues related to travel, whether or not you do an internship, volunteer, or study abroad program. Not everything is in optimal condition when you travel abroad. It comes with the territory!

Some students rave; some grumble about being underutilized and not learning enough.

This happens in regular internships and even jobs. It has nothing to do with interning abroad but rather work-life whether you do an internship in your hometown or in another country.

“Kai Norden, a University of Michigan sophomore majoring in business and environmental science, found an internship last summer at a London consulting firm where an alumnus worked; he got to research farming in Uganda for an apparel company that was setting up a fair trade program. The employer’s stipend covered housing and food; he paid only $1,400, for visa and flight. “It was a lot better than the whole pay-to-play program where you have to shell out a lot of money,” he said.”

That’s great when such opportunities come up. If interns are able to work directly with organizations, that’s great. However, for interns traveling to a new country that is incredibly different from what they are used to such as India, Ghana, and others, utilizing that in-country staff that internship organizers provide can be the key to having a better and safer time. Additionally, when organizing your own internship abroad individually with a company, what you are missing is the social element of living with other interns around your age who want to explore and travel during free time. You may end up paying less but also being pretty lonely in a new country and nervous to travel on your own. Paying to intern abroad is a great way to get you that social glue needed to help you settle in if you are just going abroad for 4-8 weeks and need a quick and organized way to be in the country. Thus, saying that just because an employer pays for some expenses does not translate to an experience being “a lot better than the whole pay-to-play program”.

Giulia works on minority communities in India

We feel that searching for the right program is key in gaining the experience that interns want. Not all programs start at $6,000. Some start for as low as $900. Thus, let’s give credit to this diverse industry that is growing and also improving it’s own standards of what to offer the students who work hard to have these experiences. Some providers will be more expensive and others will be less—some offer more value and others less. You cannot generalize an entire industry or an entire group of people. Those that are paying $1,500 for the month to intern abroad make up an entirely different demographic than those that pay $6,000 for the same time frame.

Read the Full Article on the New York Times website here: http://mobile.nytimes.com/2015/02/08/education/edlife/the-10000-unpaid-global-internship.html?_r=1