Internships should provide housing

Since highschool, I knew that I wanted to work within media. I also knew that when it was time, I wanted to do an internship in New York. Why? I truly believe that New York is the mecca of media. More importantly, New York is also the home of NBC, a company I have always wanted to work with. From SNL to Jimmy Fallon, and so much more, NBC in New York has a lot to offer. Needless to say, I could not wait to apply for their open internship positions.

However, once I started doing my research, I found that almost all of their internships are truly only available to those that live there or have the financial ability to rent an apartment there for a certain amount of time. Unfortunately these two criteria I am not able to uphold. I have tried saving money up since I was a freshman to be able to rent a place out there for the summer. Yet, I found that at the beginning of every semester, I had to help my family with the holds on my account by using all of that money.

I cannot help but think that my dream of working in New York would be a lot closer if only housing was made available to me. In fact, I believe that a lot of people have “settled” finding internships in their hometowns simply because they cannot afford moving away. By limiting who companies choose to hire, they are in fact hurting themselves. Imagine all of the ideas and hard work that others or me could have brought to NBC, if only they had offered housing. If internships offered housing they would allow so many other people to have a chance at getting their dream career. The type of connections that can be made from a company in a big city are relatively better for one’s career than connections from a small town. All I’m saying is that if more internships offered housing, more opportunities can be opened up for more people.

IMAGE COURTESY OF USATODAY.COM