Summer Intern Wanted

• I’m going to voice a contrarian opinion here, but I want to start by explaining that it
  doesn’t come from any hatred or disrespect for this blog. I may not always
  agree with the views expressed in a particular article, but that very diversity
  of views being expressed on the same blog is admirable in itself. Any kind of
  contradiction or diversity is usually suppressed in blogs like this (in my
  experience), so the effort on the part of Literally, Darling to be more diverse
  and representative even at the risk of contradicting itself is important.

  That being said, it’s my opinion that restricting the offer of this internship to current
  college students is antithetical to that very goal of inclusiveness, diversity,
  and representation. I can understand (and respect) wanting to give college
  students an opportunity, but by excluding people who aren’t in college, you’re preventing the possibility of their voices to be heard, or at least the possibility of
  their voices to be heard as frequently as those who are in college. A decision
  like this implies that this blog (and its information and community) is
  intended only for those people who are in college or college educated. What
  about the voices of the people who couldn’t afford college, or the people who
  dropped out when they realized that their degree and experience wouldn’t get
  them a high enough paying job to dig themselves out of the debt they were
  amassing to get that degree and experience, or the people who saw that trend of
  skyrocketing costs of higher education and tried to avoid it, or the people who
  didn’t want what college is supposed to be about or give them? And my problem
  isn’t so much about this internship position requirement as it is about a trend
  in this blog: most (if not all, I’m not sure) of your content is written by people
  who followed the very specific life path of graduating college. It makes this
  blog feel insulated at best and classist and elitist at worst. The women of our
  generation are not all graduate students or pursuing a degree or even
  academics, and by shutting them out (even, or especially, unintentionally), you’re
  reinforcing the narrow-minded and ridiculous “spoiled, elitist, oblivious
  idealist” stereotype that other people try to put on us.

  Please consider making the blog more inclusive and looking past this biased mindset, because the goal of this blog is too important to allow an issue like this to mar its execution.

  Reply

• Hi Lillianrill,

  Thank you for thought-out comments and for understanding what we’re about on Literally, Darling, being an exact representation of our exaggerated selves – regardless of whether it’s popular, we all agree on it, or if it’s outside the norm. We strive to stick to the basic rule of writing – write what you know. That’s why one of our Editorial Board members wrote, “I Didn’t Go to College And I’m Glad” ( https://literallydarling.mystagingwebsite.com/blog/2013/11/15/didnt-go-college-im-glad/), Eric discussed being the first in his family to ever graduate and the staggering difficulty of justifying the loans needed to so (https://literallydarling.mystagingwebsite.com/blog/2013/09/03/5-things-about-being-college-educated-in-a-family-that-isnt/), we’ve debated the merits of whether the drastic inflation costs of higher education and the student loans attached to them kept college from returning the investment (https://literallydarling.mystagingwebsite.com/blog/2013/09/19/has-college-broken-its-contract/) as well as many others. We write about our experiences, and many of those have included college so it will always be a component of the site. However college education has never been a pre-requisite of submitting to our site – good writing, an interesting perspective, and being a twenty-something is all we ask, and we take guest submissions constantly. Anyone can submit an article for us to consider and we welcome and encourage them.

  As for the internship being limited to college students, that’s easy. For one it’s an internship for social media, not to be one of our writers. Anyone can submit to write for us outside of this and get their voices heard on our platform. Secondly it’s a matter of what we can do for them – no one gets paid and for our interns that really sucks. Interns SHOULD be paid, and we hate that we can’t offer that, especially since their promotion of our articles across social media is what helps LD reach our audiences. So what we can offer is the ability for them to get college credit for their work. If their school agrees, then maybe they can get three credits and save themselves a lot of money in the process. It’s our way of trying to offer some form of reparation for all their hard work, and for that reason this internship will always be for college students.

  Again, I thank you for your honest opinion – we never shy away from unpopular truths and if you would ever like to write a piece about the very topic you discuss, we’d love to see it. Email us at submissions@literallydarling.com.

  Katie Racine
  Editor-in-Chief & Founder

  Reply

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