I think it is safe to say that we have all heard that we need to "gain experience" of some sorts in a field that we want to pursue a job by finding an internship or a work study program. Well, the problem with that is that there are a number of unpaid internships that are offered to us unprivileged and on our own college adults (let's face it, we are all adults once in college). Why is that a problem? For starters, we can barely afford to pay for our own education, let alone feed ourselves. Why would we want to waste gas and time to go to a place, possibly far away, to work without pay? Though, there are also volunteer programs which people can sign up for, which usually never pay, but according some, looks great on a resume.

I understand though, volunteer programs and organizations are usually non-profit and look for donations to be able to keep on operating. To be honest though, I strongly feel that if you have to apply and go through a hiring process in order to work or intern somewhere, you should be paid. There are plenty of arguments against why unpaid, or low paying, internships are bad and even illegal, but I would like to focus on an article that I stumbled upon in my research of this topic.

First, however, I want to advert your attention to what this article is truly circulating: my reasoning on why The Odyssey should, in fact, pay its student writers.

The Odyssey On-line describes itself as a "social discovery platform committed to democratizing content creation while personalizing discovery." It is basically a blog involving thousands of Content Creators (writers) across the globe, who submit a wide variety of articles involving every subject from politics, to LGBT life, to satire and religion.

The way The Odyssey on-boards its student Content Creators (writers) is by establishing branches through colleges and universities, to which certain tasks and positions are also established.

The way people find out about the blog is usually through word of mouth or through various social media platforms, like Facebook and Twitter. Originally, I was first contacted by a hiring manager from the Becker College branch in Worcester, Massachusetts, through Instagram.

At first, I was suspicious. Being contacted out of the blue by someone completely unknown to me, offering me a job to write, definitely brought up some red flags; due mainly in part by the fact that it looked to be a big scam. I decided to go along with it and contacted Zach, the hiring manager, and said I was interested in what he had to say but wanted a bit more information on what this writing platform would be about.

Sure enough, the information and position were legitimate and I jumped on the opportunity to build my skills up and possibly have my article be seen by millions of viewers

Well, to my dismay, that was only one of the few let downs I have so far experienced. The way articles are seen is through social media sharing done by both the writer and pretty much friends, family, classmates, etc. that follow the writer on these social media platforms. We have to make sure we meet a quota of how many times each article is shared, less we want to be contacted telling us that we need to get them up. I understand though, this is the way that things must be. Though, it is quite disheartening to see that most of my articles barely make it to the required sharing quota, because friends and family just don't seem to care much.

It is also very frustrating because I believed we, the student writers would be compensated for our work, which, to be fair, is somewhat true. The Odyssey awards its writers, who have the most shared article of the week, with an incentive of $20. That is nice, but for someone like me who can barely reach 10 shares, is depressing and, as I see it, something I will never receive for my works that I put time and dedication into, which also cover a variety of interesting topics. It is like a piece of cheese on a stick being waved in front of me while I'm running on a treadmill; no matter how hard I work for it, it is still too far out of my reach.

It is not only unfair to me, but to others who are excited about writing and feel that what they write is important, yet is crushed because they feel unimportant, like drones who are just there to make the company money and don't get anything in return.

This brings us back to the topic of unpaid internships. The Odyssey, like some of those unpaid internships, require interested students to go through a request to join process, which is sent to the specified team at the specified school, is looked over, and, if accepted, is contacted by the hiring manager for a screening process.

If you make it through, congratulations, you are now a Content Creator (writer) for blog that is one step up from Buzzfeed. Now, this is where things become a bit tricky and somewhat complicated. The Odyssey has plenty of paying positions at corporate locations as well as on-line, higher up, editing positions. Where does that money come from? Well, Odyssey has advertising contacts with a good number a large companies, such as Verizon Wireless, who display advertisements on every article that is uploaded and published to the blog's website. This system is very similar to the way Youtube operates, due in part to each viewing of an article and sharing equates to income that The Odyssey accumulates.

Even so, the fact that we, the writers, do not get paid for our contributions is technically illegal. In an article published on Economist.com, there is a passage that talks about the "six conditions" the Department of Labour has regarding internships. A few that really stood out to me are as follows:

"the internship must be 'similar to training which would be given in an educational environment”; that the intern must not displace ordinary employees; and that the firm must not benefit from the work the intern carries out'".

Well, we can technically count the student Content Creator (writer) positions at The Odyssey, technically, as unpaid internship positions. If we were to dissect this a bit further, we, the writers, are provided with only a small portion of training, in the form of emailed pdf documents, which explain the correct formats for writing and citations. We are technically replacing the need for paid writers, and, most importantly, the company is kept alive by our submitted content. Just from that last condition, it is clear The Odyssey is breaking the law. We create a medium for the advertisements, which in turn benefits the company because it accumulates wealth through views and shares. It is, without a doubt, an overly shady way to abuse "free work" which is blanketed with the idea that this will look fantastic on a resume.

It is not just me who has bee becoming rather upset with this fact; more and more Content Creators (writers) and student editors, both past and present, are speaking out about this issue. One which I came across recently, from an unlisted source (privacy is my top priority whenever it comes to personal source) which I will display in a picture, rather than text.

Let me be clear, we are impoverished college students, most of us unable to get enough financial aid and funding to attend college or even feed ourselves during the school year. By giving us an opportunity to contribute our valuable time and effort and not repaying us is an absolute insult to us and our intelligence. So, I want to say this, pay your writers, Odyssey. We deserve a cut of the profits you so excitedly claim to make.

To end, I want to share a very compelling phrase, or title, of an article by Wil Wheaton:

You can’t pay your rent with “the unique platform and reach our site provides”