I've recently applied for a newspaper internship at my hometown newspaper. The purpose of the internship, at least as it would seem, is to get reporting experience for a future job.
One of the qualifications for the internship? You guessed it: News reporting experience. The same experience that the internship is designed to provide.
Now, I guess I can understand why someone would want pre-experience experience for their opportunity to provide experience - if you followed any of that, a gold star is yours - but am I the only one that wonders what the equivalent to this would be in other circles?
Let's take the time-honored example of a guy and a girl. They both like each other. They're both itching to date, for companionship, love, late-night hookups, having someone to introduce at wine tastings; whatever their motives are they want to date.
But wait. Before the guy can date the girl, the girl wants him to date someone else. Not because she doesn't think the guy won't be a fantastic boyfriend, good in the sack or a dynamite person to introduce at wine tastings; just because she needs someone to give this guy a resume booster. That way, the girl can have tangible proof of what she knows - this guy is fantastic.
A talented teenage basketball player wants to play on an Amateur Athletic Union team to bolster his chances of being recruited by a major college team. For purposes of our example, this kid is desperate to play at Ball State. I know, I'm dreaming.
Anyway, the AAU team is psyched to have this kid play. He has major talent, is strong, tall and can put the biscuit in the basket. He would be an asset to any team.
But wait! The kid has to play on a junior AAU team first. We can't have anyone just jumping right into the audition for the big leagues. He has to play at a lower level, just so the team can have confidence in itself. Even if the kid has proven himself, the AAU team wants to see more of him in action before it can truly make its decision.
A hotshot young coach is ready to head up a college basketball program. It doesn't have to be a major program. He can lead teams that are miles away from major teams. They can be miles away from mid-major for crying out loud. But he's an assistant right now, with no head coaching experience. Repeatedly, he gets passed up for jobs he is qualified for in favor of dudes with losing career records and a long line of bad behavior - just because they have experience. Why, then, did these little colleges with nothing to lose need a canvas for what they already knew the guy was capable of?
Hmm. Maybe that's not such a good example for a far-fetched situation.
The point is, the world is all about experience. You need it to get a job. You need it to get married. You need it to accomplish things. You need it for almost every important thing in life.
But if we start attaching experience requirements to things that are only designed to help us get to the be-all and end-all of our lives, rather than the things that really and truly matter in the world, we're going to chase away a lot of people who might just not be able to get that experience.
Most of them probably won't be worth the time anyway. But all it takes is one for it to be too many.
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