• idiomaddict@lemmy.world
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    3 months ago

    I used to work at an insurance company, and I ran the internship program for my department once. When we were doing the interviews, one of the candidates was from my geographic area, which is pretty rural and not many of my coworkers were from anywhere near there. He’d launched a free tutoring program at his high school and carried it on a few hours a week through his first couple years of university until that point. For paid work experience, he had mostly agricultural work, because he had to support his family.

    I’m realizing now that I may have been a little naïve about it, but no one else even wanted to consider him compared to the students who were able to do many more extracurricular activities and were able to dedicate more hours to non paid work.

    What I’m trying to say is that even if nobody is actively corrupt, it’s a structurally classist system.

    • maegul (he/they)
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      3 months ago

      What I’m trying to say is that even if nobody is actively corrupt, it’s a structurally classist system.

      Yep … this.

      Whether there are lies or nepotism or completely inapplicable experiences or just confirmation biases … the very idea of the internship to get your foot in the door is classist.

      The idea that you have time to burn for free for the sake of your career is classist. The idea that an economic system premised on everyone being employed somehow should work by having those employees constantly “hustle” to get employment is classist. To speak of these notions as universally applicable without acknowledging their classism … is classist.