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Are Unpaid Internships Worth It?

My Experience With an Unpaid UX Design Internship

Melody
Prototypr
4 min readAug 18, 2020

When I was starting out in the field of UX, I had very little “real world” experience. It was the one piece of feedback I kept hearing from recruiters after countless interviews. “We’re looking for someone with more ‘real world’ experience.” As a new grad, that was tough to hear over and over again.

I wanted to have something concrete to talk about during my interviews that wasn’t a class project. It was about 6 months into my post-grad job hunt and I felt like I needed something to act as a stepping stone until I could get a full time UX design job. I finally turned to an unpaid internship which was very short lived. I want to share what my experience was with my unpaid internship in case you were thinking of doing the same.

How I Found My Unpaid Internship

I was desperate for experience. One day during my job search, I noticed some unpaid internships at startups on AngelList. It seemed like a great way to boost my resume and add “real experience” talking points during interviews. Since it was unpaid, I felt much more confident that I would get the position. Who would want to turn away free help?

The internships I found were for product designers and most said that they would be…

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Written by Melody

UX Content Designer—loves cats, video games, and In-n-Out Burger

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