Neoliberalism

Introduction
In today’s world, students lack experience in their desired field. Neoliberalism places responsibility on the individual for both their successes and failures. Internships have become a necessity in a neoliberalism society because it teaches students that for them to advance in their career, they must gain the skills and experience that internships give them. They require a person to become proactive for them to make the most of their experience. Society has encouraged universities to use internships to allow students to receive academic credit. Deluca and Minkove mentioned that schools “must find ways to make our ‘product’—our students—more valuable, and we must ‘produce’ them in more efficient way (since) the present economic

climate in the U.S. features a depressed job market, a reality that has intensified concerns regarding the employment value of a college degree. (Deluca & Minkove, 2016)”. This mean that universities have integrated internships into their curriculum to fine tune their student’s professional skills, while making them a more marketable candidate to future employers.
I have always been a firm believer in internships because I believe it forces students to become more ambitious and to know that these opportunities will not come easy if they choose to not make an effort. Over the past four years, I have interned with Towson’s Athletic Media Relations department and these experiences has allowed me to acquire both job and life skills, along with giving me an idea of what I want to pursue in the sports field and what work ethic I should have. I am connecting my experience to what I have learned in this course to draw on the moral and ethical impacts they have on society.
In the following paper, I am arguing that internships are necessary and beneficial for student’s career advancement by using my own personal experience. Then I will explain the negatives of internships and how they contribute to the unethical treatment of interns. I will be using articles from Koo and Hergert to key in on the positives, in contrast with articles by Brown and Parent. Finally, we will end on a way the internship process can be improved for the future employees of the sporting industry.
College Athletics Through Media Relations
Throughout high school I was never the most coordinated person when it came to sports, so I had to find an alternative from playing, which led me to being a manager. After managing both the junior varsity and varsity football and baseball teams, I found myself extremely interested in the management side of sports versus the playing. When it came time to apply for schools, I was one of the few students that knew what they wanted to major in. From the beginning, I believed that I was at a complete disadvantage. I was never really considered an athlete and I playing sports was more of a hobby for me. Along with that, I decided to pursue a field predominately male. Instead of changing my path in sports to something that seemed more “fitting” I decided to give up my summers and devote them to internships. I believed that if I came into jobs more experienced, it would counteract the fact that I was not male and I was not an athlete.
By the time I arrived at Towson, I had already completed two internships, one being for a non-profit, and the other with the Washington Nationals. I knew that I could not take a break from gaining experience, so I decided to look for internships within the athletic department. The first weekend of my freshman year, I interviewed to be a student intern for the Athletic Media Relations Department. The internship started with me doing menial tasks such as circling players who participated in the games and punching numbers into the scoreboard. As the weeks went on, I was thrown into more difficult task of running the clock for sports and inputting live statistics in for field hockey. I noticed that my boss started to trust me more and they continued to give me newer tasks each time.