Why don't businesses concentrate more resources on finding and hiring high-quality interns?

I've applied for several internships lately, and I have my first interview today. With internships on my mind, I started considering the lack of care that most businesses put into getting high-quality interns, and I have come to the conclusion that the methods used by many businesses could use a large amount of improvement. Most of the businesses that I have applied with do not pay at all or pay a "stipend" that is below what a student can live on. Even students like myself that have only one year left of college, have very good grades, and have a significant amount of relevant experience in their field find it very difficult to find an internship that pays even minimum wage. Yet somehow, after only one more year of school, the magical degree is conferred on a person and the same person that couldn't find an unpaid internship just one year before is getting paid $20 an hour or more.

Considering all of this, would it not be much more intelligent for more businesses to recruit future employees by taking them on as interns one year early, paying them minimally, and teaching them about the business if they prove to be competent? These almost completely trained students would be grateful for minimal pay and would be prone to be quite loyal to the business that has finally given them an internship after what was likely a long search. If the student proves to be competent, they could be trained to do a specific job, hired part-time during their final year in school, and given a full-time job that they are already fully trained to do upon graduation. If they do not prove to be competent, they could be paid minimally to fetch coffee and run other errands for the summer and then let go. This situation is a win-win for businesses, which would either get a competent, loyal, new employee or a minimally paid lackey. If more businesses would be willing to put time and a little money into searching for and paying interns they would have much better, more reliable, more loyal employees in the long run. 

Image Credit: http://fistfuloftalent.com/2012/04/do-yourself-a-favor-hire-an-intern.html 

The university meal plan

When a student that lives in the residence halls here at Montana State University pays for their housing, they are also automatically enrolled in either a five-day or seven-day meal plan. This meal plan seems like an excellent thing at first- the student never has to cook, wash dishes, or pay for meals individually. However, there comes an inevitable time in the year when the same student decides that they can't stand eating the dining hall food every day. These students, not having a kitchen readily available to them, end up going out to restaurants quite often.

Going out to restaurants is normally an expensive endeavor, but it becomes costly to an even greater extent when it is considered that the student is simultaneously paying for a meal in the dining hall that they are not even eating. This is the point at which the once convenient meal plan becomes a burden, leaving the student with only two choices. The first is that they eat every meal in the dining hall, whether they like what is being served or not, in order to achieve the full value of their meal plan. The second is that they pay for two meals at once. Neither of these options is ideal, and each can cause the student to experience a considerable amount of hardship. That is the paradox of the seemingly logical and convenient mandatory meal plan. 

Image credit:  http://petrockstudios.com/2011/07/17/to-eat-meat-or-not-eat-meat-vegetarian-vegan/      

App buying- they just can't seem to do it

College students always have to have the latest and greatest technology, no matter what the cost. I know several students that eat ramen almost literally every day and live in cheap apartments, but also have an ipad, and iphone. This type of behavior may not seem to have a reasonable explanation, but in reality it goes back to what I have talked about in many prior posts, the need to be seen to "cool." However, these very same students that seem to value their devices so highly often exhibit another strange behavior. Even though they have spent $600 on an ipad and $200 on an iphone, spending $5 on an app that will make the device much more effective seems to be something that many students refuse to contemplate.

This attitude does not make logical sense, but many students display it nonetheless, for various reasons.  One reason is that students convince themselves that they have a burning need for the device that they desire, and that their quality of life will greatly improve if they purchase it. While the students are able to convince themselves that they need the device, they do not feel the same desire for most apps, making them unwilling to buy them. Another reason for this phenomenon is that many students, as I have mentioned in previous posts, have very little money of their own and rely primarily on their parents for support. These students may be able to convince their parents to buy them an ipad for Christmas, but they find it more difficult to convince the same parents to fund the buying of many apps. For these reasons and, I'm sure, others of which I am not aware, many college students possess many expensive devices but are not willing to spend the money to optimize them. This is a strange phenomenon to be sure.    

Image Credit: http://www.oc.school.nz/learning/e-learning/ 

College Students and Car Problems

I recently had to take my car to the shop, the third time I've had to do so since buying it a year and a half ago, and while sitting for three hours in the tiny waiting room I had one major question for myself...why did I get a car in the first place. There are certain situations in which buying a car is smart for a college student, such as if they live or work far from campus, but none of these situations apply to me. For all of my three years in college, I have lived and worked on campus. There is a grocery store with any essential item that I might need less than a block away, and my parents live less than an hour and a half away so it would be easy for them to come and get me when they want me to visit them. There are several excellent restaurants within walking distance of campus, and I don't ski, snowboard, or hike alone or frequently. All of this brings me back to my original question, if I have no good reason to have a car, why do I have one at all?

The answer to this question for me and many other college students in the same situation is, sadly, the same as the reason that many high school students that don't really need them have cars:  we don't want to seem lame. Being able to say that you'll drive when you go out is important in Montana, especially for dates. Bozeman is not equipped with solutions for people who drive only occasionally, such as Zipcar, that are now available in large cities. Due to this, even those of us that only drive occasionally are willing to pay for cars, insurance, maintenance, and gas, all so that we can seem cool to friends and the opposite sex and for a little added convenience when running errands. For a group of people with such limited resources, college students sink a ridiculous amount of money into cars, and I challenge them to ask themselves if they have a legitimate reason for doing so, just as I did.      

Image credit: http://www.aidanmoran.com/blog2/2008/08/batman-still-driving-same-shitty-car.html

Videos related to my last post...

Below are a couple of amusing videos related to my last post, male and female perspectives of buying condoms. I know the first image makes it look dirtier than it is, but they're really just funny and that was the only full-length version of the video that I could find. Enjoy!

Video Credits:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IGuxnbh0ig4
                        http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=40npOyt_qBA

College students shouldn't be uncomfortable with buying condoms

 

If there's one thing to be said about using birth control, assuming that a person is sexually active and that the use of birth control is not against their religion or ideals, it is that using birth control is a smart idea. Bringing a child that is not going to be well cared-for into the world is not a good thing by any standard. Despite all of this, many college students still find themselves to be uncomfortable with buying condoms or other forms of birth control. Many of these students feel as if they are being judged on their purchases by everyone around them, from the other people in the checkout line to the clerk. It is strange that buying condoms, a very logical activity, can have such a negative stigma. College students should try their best to be comfortable with buying condoms and other birth control if they choose to be sexually active. They should take pride in their choice, because the alternatives of unwanted pregnancies and STIs are much worse than a strange look from the 65 year old woman at the checkout counter of Walmart.

Image credit:  http://www.motifake.com/78979 

Coffee: Why can't it just be simple?

If there's one thing that I know is true of many college students, whether they live on campus or not, it's that they love coffee. College students are constantly sleep deprived, they are always working on a big paper or studying for their next test until late into the night. This constant sleep deprivation causes college students to require coffee, and lots of it, just to get through their day. This constant need for coffee causes coffee makers to be a dependable presence in most rooms in college residence halls, but if you look more closely, there's something odd about these coffee makers. Many of them are expensive, high-tech, and some students even have espresso machines, but the strange thing is that almost all of these machines are rarely used. The students that own the coffee makers still drink a large amount of coffee, and they almost always have coffee grounds and creamer in their rooms, but they constantly buy coffee from the coffee shops located around campus instead of using their own machines.

I am just as guilty of this habit as many on-campus students. I have an expensive coffee maker, a coffee grinder, and coffee all waiting for me in my room. However, I only use these materials once every few weeks, and I get coffee from a coffee shop an average of three to four times a week. Getting coffee from a coffee shop is just so easy, and somehow I always seem to find myself running late and unable to have time to make coffee along with the rest of my morning routine. I always tell myself that I'll wake up earlier and make my own coffee, but that's easier said that done when I only get four hours of sleep because of homework. All in all, it's just easier to get that much-needed coffee from a coffee shop, and even though we could all save hundreds of dollars a year by waking up five minutes earlier, hitting that snooze button one more time is simply too tempting to pass up.      

Image Credit: http://www.google.com/imgres?hl=en&biw=1366&bih=667&gbv=2&tbm=isch&tbnid=_h8b_4KwFw1xXM:&imgrefurl=http://www.grinningplanet.com/2004/09-21/college-joke.htm&docid=KgirLCi-aUPB2M&imgurl=http://www.grinningplanet.com/2004/09-21/college-study-copyright14.gif&w=199&h=184&ei=YcZVT8fdJuORiQKppKnQBw&zoom=1&iact=rc&dur=358&sig=104555146355957331638&page=1&tbnh=147&tbnw=159&start=0&ndsp=19&ved=1t:429,r:6,s:0&tx=44&ty=86