Summations Only

I was studying physics. Over the summer between the second and third year of my degree I worked in an engineering firm where I aided one of their designers with some mathematical modelling. I used the project I was working on at this engineering company as the project for my 'computational physics' module of the course. A senior engineer oversaw/mentored both myself and the designer in question. No. They were real clients of the engineering firm in question. I don't think many of my professors had anything like the experience of such things as the real engineers I was working with. Working on mathematically modelling real live engineering situations. I actually did surprisingly little of that. They took me on (albeit unpaid) coz my degree (theoretical physics) suggested a level of mathematical competence that was missing from some of their staff.In truth I am not sure how much I was really able to add much to their project. But the experience of working with real engineers was of massive benefit to me. And I don't see how I could have got that experience without working in that setting. Albeit unpaid.

Illegal? Which law was being broken? I was looking for a project for my computational physics module. They had a new designer who, on paper at least, was not be as mathematically trained as they would like. My 'A' level physics teacher was the common factor as he had taught us both in the past and knew someone at the engineering firm in question. He suggested the whole work experience thing and I was very grateful to him for thinking of me.As it turned out the designer was perfectly mathematically competent and, like I said, I'm not sure how much I really added. But it was indisputably good experience for me and I'm not sure why you insist on denying that..... Well because I wasn't qualified, had no prior relevant experience and was doing it as part of a project contributing to my degree. In short I was doing unpaid work experience.....They could have taken a different route that didn't involve me at all. The could have spent some money on assessing the mathematical competence of the designer more formally I guess. Or they could have tied up someone more senior as some sort of mathematical chaperone for him. But instead they decided that between the two of us we could be thrown in at the deep end a bit and (with some more flexible support from the senior engineer overseeing us both to make sure we didn't do anything dum) that it would provide both of us with some valuable experience.And it did....

You seem utterly intent on turning work experience into some sort of zero-sum game where the more the employer gains the necessarily less the work-experiencee gains. But the best work experience is that where both the employer and the person doing the work experience both gain. Non-zero sum. Win-win.The problem with the sort of work experience that prompted this thread is that it doesn’t seem to be that sort of win-win work experience. But your stance that ALL unpaid work experience is unjust or futile or even illegal just doesn’t hold up to reality. Oh. Then you will find that you are wrong that my work experience was illegal. Apart from anything else we are talking nearly 20 years ago before there was a minimum wage. And I seriously doubt that an undergraduate doing work experience whilst doing part of a degree project would fall foul of the minimum wage laws even today. But if you can demonstrate otherwise I’d love to hear it.? I wasn’t qualified in the sense that I didn’t yet have a degree. A degree would have been the minimum level of formal qualification attainment required to employ me to do that sort of job on a properly paid basis. The fact that I was 2/3rds of the way through a degree course which was highly mathematical in nature obviously convinced them I could contribute meaningfully in my work experience role for a limited period of time. I doubt they would have let me loose if I was studying art-history for example. You are conflating qualified in the sense of holding qualifications (e.g. degree certificates and suchlike) with qualified in the sense of able. I wasn’t qualified (i.e. I didn’t have a degree) to be employed as an engineer but I was qualified (i.e. I was able) to contribute to a real limited-term project that was simultaneously very relevant to my degree project. I certainly worked with the designer in question to mathematically model the specific thing we were working on (it was to do with spraying crops, particle sizes and suchlike — I wish I could remember the details but I’ve forgotten all that clever stuff I used to know) and I know that the work we did was incorporated into the project as a whole. Could he have done it without me? I think so. It just would have taken longer. I don’t think I was. I had to complete a computational physics project. So it’s not like I just went there and did stuff out of boredom or charity or something. I did my degree project, gained experience of an actual working engineering environment, had a great laugh with the design guy I was working with and did something that was useful to the company in the process.It’s called a win-win situationEdited by Straggler, : Fix quotes

Put yourself in my position. You can..A) Invent a project (most others in my class did some deeply unoriginal version of the three body problem)B) Ask your lecturer for a project because you are too devoid of inspiration to think of one yourselfC) Take the opportunity to work, unpaid, at a prestigious engineering company on a real life mathematical modelling problem supervised by those who have done this sort of thing before, experiencing a professional engineering environment and having access to situations and people which frankly money alone cannot buy....Which do you choose...?I chose C)

Really? Maybe in the UK it is radically different... But I recently organised work experience for my 17 year old nephew at my current place of work. There were numerous legal complications. I had to sign off that we weren't going to expose him to hazardous chemicals or high voltages. He had to sign some sort of insurance waiver. His mum (my sister) had to sign parental consent and responsibility forms. But the HR department here (whose entire existence is to know and implement UK employment law) never once stipulated that his work experience consist of useless "without value" work.He answered the helpdesk phones and logged helpdesk calls. He wandered round our site collecting wifi signal strength data for me. Non of which is "useless".Yet our team of in house employment specialists saw no legal problem with this....I guess you just know better huh?

My computational physics lecturer thought it was a good opportunity ("jump at it" I believe was his advice). My ‘A’ level teacher who arranged the work experience for no personal gain to himself, thought it was a good opportunity. My classmates, friends and family thought it was a good opportunity. The employers who interviewed me for jobs in my twenties thought it was a good opportunity and a valuable thing to have done. I thought it was a good opportunity.In fact the only person I have heard from who doesn’t consider the work experience I undertook back then as a good opportunity — Is you.Perhaps I have failed to convey the true nature of the situation to you.
Perhaps everyone else I know and trust is wrong and you are right.
Or perhaps, just perhaps, you are wrong on this one and there is a potentially great deal of value to be had from unpaid work experience.Now the real question that should be asked in this thread is what sort of unpaid work experience is of practical benefit to the work-experiencee and does the government scheme (supposedly) under discussion qualify.....

So the company strategy is to employ a team of costly legal professionals in order to gain the ability to illegally get 17 year old junior call loggers for free.As a method of exploitation for profit that seems spectacularly un-cost effective and bewilderingly inefficient. I would have said: "There isn't any budget set aside to pay you to be here. I arranged for you to be here for your experience and your benefit. If you don't want to be here then you are free to go. If you just want to sit and watch what other people do I can make that happen. But I think, and I understood the reason you wanted to do this was to actually experience the world of work (specifically in a central London corporate environment), that you will gain the best experience and most insight by actually doing some productive and useful tasks of the sort you would do if you were genuinely employed here. Because of your age and experience these tasks won't necessarily be the most glamorous or exciting. I can't have you reconfiguring the network or implementing a new email system for example. But they will be genuine tasks that need doing and we will endeavor to find things that give you the opportunity to see different aspects of the company and suchlike. If anyone takes the piss by asking you to do something utterly menial, such as do their years-worth-of-filing for them, let me know and I'll explain that this is of no value to you and not why you are here. But I'm pretty sure that if you are decent and flexible to the people here they will be decent and flexible back and that it will be of great worth to you in ways that are not financial. I did a couple of stints of unpaid work experience when I was not-a-lot-older than you and I had a great time, met some great people and learnt loads. I urge you to take this opportunity because as your uncle I genuinely think it will be a good thing for you. But you don't have to be here and if the money issue is the overriding factor as far as you are concerned then, whilst I think you are making a mistake, I am not going to do anything other than this little speech to try and convince you to stay."Or something along those lines anyway....

I expect there was a point in all their careers where their need for experience in their chosen field was greater than the need of an employer for their inexperienced labor in that field. Not really...The thing you are failing to recognise here is that my company didn’t need the labor of my nephew. Likewise the engineering company I did work experience at didn’t need my labor. Neither was going to pay for that which it didn’t need. But in both cases it was still possible for the company to benefit from the opportunities afforded to the work-experiencee. A win-win outcome. As all the best work-experience should surely be.Lets give a very specific example here. For one task I sent my nephew off to the Olympic site in Stratford to collect wifi signal strength data. To fill in some holes in the signal coverage map of our site there. I could have gone myself. A chance to get out of the office whilst doing something necessary but untaxing in a pleasant and interesting environment would have been really quite welcome. Any of the network engineers would likely have welcomed the task too. But no. We spent 20 minutes or so showing my nephew what to do and sent him off instead. The thinking being that it was a task he could do, a task that was genuinely necessary and a task that gave him the opportunity to see some interesting and noteworthy aspects of the work the company is involved with in places most people didn’t have access to at the time. Did the company benefit? Yes. The fact my nephew did this task meant the paid-qualified-experienced employees (e.g. me) could get on with more skilled and productive work rather than go off on a (albeit necessary) jolly to the Olympic park for an afternoon. I vaguely recall that I got to spend the afternoon battling with a corrupted SQL database instead. Joy....So —Was my nephew being exploited by a bunch of unscrupulous corporate fat cats profiting from his slavishly unrewarded toil? Or was he gaining opportunities and experience whilst undertaking genuinely useful and necessary work as a result of working unpaid?It is obvious to me that the latter is true. As his uncle I have no desire to exploit my nephew and every desire to do him a favour. I'm not sure why you can't see that.....

Which is exactly why the sort of government schemes (supposedly) under discussion should be targeted at those who are unable to obtain gainful employment because they lack experience of work and should focus on giving them the experience necessary to obtain gainful employment.I’m not convinced the schemes that prompted this thread do that.
But your stance that unpaid work is never a means to achieving this is just silly.