Hello and welcome to the end of your undergraduate college years, I hope you had fun.

If you did it right – you have a coffee addiction, function on 4 hours of sleep, binge watched everything on Netflix and learned how to get out of bed with a wicked hangover.

The last few months are flying by and although you don’t have a fancy receipt from a university yet – you still like to look at jobs you want, but notice they all require experience.

There must be a mistake, right? How can someone require experience for an entry-level job?

Well, they can and they do, but wait – that’s where the wonderful world of internships come in.

Yes, Internships, a loophole in the system. Where students can beef up their resumes and look desirable, but where businesses can get all of their work done for free.

I get it, nothing is better than taking advantage of today’s youth: young, desperate and willing to do anything to get their foot in the door. It’s a shame that’s how the world works.

I imagine Mr. Burns tapping his fingers together at his desk, saying excellent, when resumes of college kids come in – practically stating, “Will do anything for no pay.”

Don’t get me wrong, it’s a wonderful way to do business. Why pay for something when you can get it done for free?

Of course, as an intern and someone who is slowly going insane, I think of the Joker in The Dark Knight.

“If you are good at something, never do it for free,” he said. *insert maniacal laugh here.*

So now here I am, like many of us, with a job where I get paid in experience – which I’ve tried to convince myself and friends is more important than money. As you can imagine, that got a big laugh.

It’s a funny world for people in their early twenties: We are broke, we are in debt, we barely get taken seriously and we need three jobs just to pay for a social life.

But here we are, ironing our best dress shirts, rehearsing elevator speeches and attending internship mixers – just for a shot at being an indentured servant.