Recently I’ve been having a back and fourth conversation with Zachary Janowski on twitter about unpaid internships. It was spurred from my comment on a tweet by Daniel Schwartz announcing the sixth circuit tossed out the Department of Labor’s internship test. 140 characters is cramping my style so I am expanding my thoughts in this blog post.

I have had both paid, underpaid, and unpaid internships in a variety of fields during my undergraduate years and now in law school. I have enjoyed and benefitted from all these experiences. I do not regret any of them and to the extent that I have been able to afford them I’d do it again.

In spite of this the Department of Labor headed in the right direction with its policy towards unpaid internships. I believe that generally unpaid internships are poor policy. Interns create value that corporations benefit from, lack of paying internships discourages talent from certain fields, and there is a lack of negotiating symmetry on the part of students and employers. However, I do not think unpaid internships should be outlawed or eliminated. Non-profits should certainly continue to be allowed to offer them. Corporations and government should offer them to the extent they serve as classes or are in partnership with the university where the primary oversight and control is by a professor. Otherwise corporations and governments should be required to pay interns at least minimum wage.

Saw this on a post at Sad City Hartford and I agree that it looks promising. I look forward to seeing it in the fall.

I think Scott Adams is a fantastic writer. I frequently enjoy reading his blog. If you have not yet had the chance you should read the piece he penned for the Wall Street Journal on education. Adams is certainly creative in this piece but his perspective seems to be limited to economics. Even my technology oriented college required courses in the humanities. Although some students dismissed these as joke classes, others embraced them and were able to explore parts of their interests they otherwise would not pursue. Adams also failed to consider the impact on society if we only specialize in the things we are interested in. Citizens will never be fully informed on all the issues, but should at least be literate in them and able to identify and articulate why their preferred candidates comport with those values. Otherwise if a large group of voters are “getting it wrong” then society might lose out on a good leader that actually shares the values of its citizens.

I understand why the top students in America study physics, chemistry, calculus and classic literature. The kids in this brainy group are the future professors, scientists, thinkers and engineers who will propel civilization forward. But why do we make B students sit through these same classes? That’s like trying to train your cat to do your taxes—a waste of time and money. Wouldn’t it make more sense to teach B students something useful, like entrepreneurship?

via How to Get a Real Education at College – WSJ.com.

While people seem to read this blog they do not often post replies directly here (I tend to receive feedback via the MyLeftNutmeg site, facebok, and twitter). Spammers however seem to enjoy registering and posting. I’ve added the step of requiring registration if you actually wish to make a comment to reduce the amount of spam that has to get filtered through on this. I apologize if it causes any inconvenience.

I received the following e-mail today:

TO: University Community

FROM: Richard Gray, Vice President and Chief Financial Officer
Barry Feldman, Vice President and Chief Operating Officer
Peter Nicholls, Provost and Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs

SUBJ: Town Hall Meeting – March 18, 2011

The University community is invited to attend a Town Hall Meeting on Friday, March 18th at 3:00 p.m. in Konover Auditorium in the Thomas J. Dodd Research Center. The purpose of the Town Hall meeting is to provide an update on tuition and fees. There will also be an opportunity for question and answer dialogue.

Regional campuses, please note: The meeting will be delivered using one-way video and audio from the following locations:

Avery Point – Academic Bldg, Rm 309
Law School – Starr 204
Stamford – Room 312
Torrington – Lecture Hall
Waterbury – Room 324
West Harford – HITC Bldg, Rm 104
UCHC – Keller Auditorium

We hope that you are able to join us on March 18th.
*************************************
Richard D. Gray
Vice President and Chief Financial Officer
University of Connecticut
352 Mansfield Road, Unit 2122
Storrs, CT 06269-2122
(860) 486-3455

I won a gift certificate to one of the local gyms at our law school’s annual Public Interest Law Group auction last November. In college I enjoyed going to the gym on a daily basis but stopped after I moved home. I finally turned in the gift certificate over my winter break and started going. Working out is relaxing but can also get boring so I have been bringing my iPod and exploring podcasts. My current favorite is MSNBC’s Morning Joe. I have a love-hate relationship with news programming and usually prefer reading my news but Mika and Joe do a great job of summarizing the stories of the day and providing witty banter.

My freshman college roommate flew back east and invited me to go see The Daily Show with some other friends from WPI. We got in line around 2 p.m. for the 6 p.m. taping. This gave us plenty of time to catch-up and shoot the breeze. Meanwhile the crew was rather supportive and handed out water to make sure everyone was well hydrated and let us into the studio a bit early. The studio is rather small and almost resembles being inside a warehouse. It seems to fit around two hundred people and luckily if you are able to get a seat you have a great view.

Before the show began they sent out a warm-up comedian to get the energy flowing and explained to us how the taping works. They use a method called live-to-tape. This means that the show is recorded in (mostly) a single shot and the audience has microphones above them to record their laughter. The Daily Show does not use laugh tracks. They did do a second take on the portion of the show about Charlie Rangel which was then spliced back into the show during editing. After that Stewart answered questions from the audience before they began taping. Finally the experience ended with the recording of a monologue for the global edition of the show. Overall it was a fantastic experience and well worth the nothing that was paid for it.

Maybe the coolest thing I’ve seen in a long time. Original from flickr. HT to Colin McEnroe.

Just wanted to share a copy of the e-mail I sent out about the student trustee election results (below the split).

Dear Friends,

I was waiting for an official announcement to be sent before I sent
this but since it seems that may not happen I wanted to inform you
that Adam Scianna (a Civil Engineer at Storrs) won the Graduate
Student Trustee election. I want to express my sincere gratitude to
everyone that supported me, voted, and sent kind words. It meant a lot
to me and I enjoyed the opportunity to hear your stories and concerns
about our school as I campaigned. While I will not have the
opportunity to tackle these as student trustee, I will continue to
stay involved in other ways.

As always you should feel free to contact our competent and hard
working SBA representatives if you have problems or suggestions for
things on campus. They work hard for you and I know they are more than
happy to try and address problems or suggestions you might have.

Sincerely,

Matt

Every two years graduate students at the University of Connecticut are given the opportunity to vote for someone to represent them on the Board of Trustees. The Board of Trustees is the governing body of our university and the last word on university policies, procedures, and tuition.

I want to serve as an advocate for graduate students across Connecticut. As an undergraduate I spent four years advocating for students as the founder of the Worcester Polytechnic Institute College Democrats. As President of the College Democrats of Massachusetts, I was responsible for fund raising, building relationships with other organizations, getting students resources, and successfully obtained representation for our group on the Democratic State Committee — the “board of trustees” for the state Democratic Party. In one year I transformed our group into a well respected political organization in the state of Massachusetts.

I will work to build a community of engagement. I pledge to hold office hours on all the graduate student campuses across Connecticut. I also pledge to work with all graduate student governments. I will provide you with updates regularly and remain accessible via phone, e-mail, facebook, and yes, even twitter.

I am concerned with ensuring that all the campuses across the state have their interests represented equally. I am concerned about tuition increases that outpace inflation. I am concerned when I see our state taking $23 Million from our operating reserve account to cover a budget gap. Some of these issues are bigger than what happens in the boardroom – to that end, I promise to advocate for our schools both at Storrs and the state capital.

Please feel free to share your ideas and concerns with me. You can e-mail me or contact me via facebook.

I respectfully ask for your vote next week (http://www.vote.uconn.edu/). If I am elected I promise that I will do my best to ensure that UCONN remains an institution we are all proud of.

Sincerely,

Matt