At the time, it didn't seem outrageous. In fact, nabbing my first internship seemed a savvy career move, a way to make connections and get my feet wet. Now that I've finally escaped from intern hell (four unpaid gigs later), I can see that I was a willing partner in a growing slave economy. I was an exploited worker, and I didn't even know it. But now that I do, I can't seem to get anyone to feel sorry for me.

Truth is, it's hard to work up much sympathy for the exploited intern class. Largely upper-middle class, college and even graduate-school educated, interns often beat out hundreds of their peers for the honor of holding unpaid grunt positions. Typically, they depend on the kindness of their parents, for a place to live and/or an allowance. The less financially fortunate work nights and weekends figuring they'll have time to sleep when the internship ends. Clearly, interning is not recommended for the faint of heart or the weak of pocketbook.

Internships are usually billed as 'resume builders,' important stepping stones for young people interested in breaking into highly competitive 'glamour industries' such as fashion, publishing, architecture, and television.

Sure, every so often a bust-assing intern might snag a production assistant position at CBS or a really good recommendation from an editor at Spin -- or Utne Reader, for that matter -- but aside from these much-touted Horatio Alger instances, the tangible rewards of interning are underwhelming.

What people don't think about, writes Jim Frederick in The Baffler (#9), is the economic impact of these industries' growing dependence on the countless hours of labor provided by young, willing, unpaid workers. Take MTV -- probably one of the choicest internships around. Frederick reports that the network uses between 150 and 200 unpaid interns at any given time and requires from each at least two days a week of work. If MTV's army of interns were to be paid minimum wage, he estimates that the cost would set the network back some $642,270 a year. Extending the same formula to the estimated 40,000 unpaid internships that are filled each year nationwide ? and assuming that they each last 12 weeks ? he comes up with a whopping cost savings (for business) or wage loss (for interns) of $39.5 million.