Internships Are A Wonderful Opportunity. Except In China.

Ahh yes. Moms and dads all over the world send their kids off to schools of higher learning in the hopes of assuring them of a rich and fulfilling future in the field of their choice. Well, except in China. In China, moms and dads send their children off to schools of higher learning so they can get invited to do internships with companies where they can learn life-long skills on production lines working 10 to 12 hour a day, 7 days a week for 3 or 4 months. The kids accept these invitations to become interns because they're promised they can continue they're schooling. Presumably the idea is that, no internship, no school. Now I suspect these are unpaid internships. Otherwise, why bother to push the internships over full employment. I should also point out that what little oversight there is on employment rights in China, don't apply to interns. It's a sweet deal for American companies like Apple. Apple's Chinese company "employs" over 75,000 interns per year. They work on production lines so the internships relate to and enhances the educational experience in college majors like music, history or political science and a host of other unrelated fields. Ya gotta hand it to China. They know how to keep the costs down in industry. Cotton plantations in the southern part of America had found the same cost saving opportunity in the early part of our history. While many in the south don't remember this approach to economic growth, it was called slavery. I don't mean to suggest China practices the same economic strategies, because they don't grow that much cotton. But they haven't missed the basic principals that were applied. Nor, apparently, has Apple. And the bonus is that the practice isn't illegal in either country. I mean it's legal to do it in China and it's not illegal in America for companies like Apple to do it in China. It's a small thing, but they seem to like it that way, for the company, not necessarily for the student. For the student, it's long hours, hard work and no pay. Just the sort of thing you might look forward to if you want to learn how to put this dot on that spot 12 hours a day 7 days a week for 3 or 4 months a year, every year you're in school. Sort of makes ya wanna become a dropout, doesn't it?