[estebank]

I've been seeing that a lot here in Europe, lots of people holding Masters degrees unrelated to IT doing unpaid/underpaid internships. I find the entire idea completely bonkers.

I did an unpaid internship that lasted 5 months in South America... when I was 17, because it was needed to get my Electronics Technician HS diploma. Even then, some of my luckier fellow students got a token payment.

I've been working since I started college, and even when underpaid at first, never had trouble finding work. Although I'm a college drop out, I didn't have trouble finding a job in a different continent even before coming here. I'm guessing that we are extremely lucky to be in our industry, as there is no lack of work, even outside of the Bay Area.

[RuggeroAltair]

I'm originally from Italy, and I can tell you that so many of my friends had to go through unpaid internships which were 'offered' with the excuse of a learning opportunity but were basically considered just as free employees.

The high unemployment rate pushes people to accept them to have at least more experience to use in their following job applications, but basically this created an ecosystem in which there is companies that count of a few employees working for free.

I can also tell you that in most cases the owners of these companies are not exactly starving, so there isn't a real reason why they shouldn't pay for good work.

Fortunately it seems that the startup culture is picking up a little, and hopefully this will improve the situation.

But I agree with you, and here in the Bay we are fairly lucky.