Prompt
You direct a small environmental nonprofit. Each summer you offer one unpaid 10-week internship. Several past interns have gone on to careers in the field, partly because of the experience and the references you wrote for them. A board member points out that the last five interns all came from families who could support them through an unpaid summer, and that students who need a summer job to pay their tuition cannot realistically apply. Paying the intern $8,000 would mean canceling, for one summer, the free after-school nature program you run for about 40 children from low-income families. You could also stop offering the internship altogether. What would you do?
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How to approach this question
What this question tests
- Ethical reasoning
- Critical thinking
- Professionalism and integrity
How to approach it
This MMI station tests how you weigh equity in who gets a career opportunity against a program that serves children from low-income families. Name the competing goods: the internship's value to students who can't afford unpaid work, and the after-school program those 40 children rely on. Ask aloud whether other funding exists, such as grants, a university partnership or a shorter paid internship. Weigh paying the intern, keeping it unpaid, and ending it, and commit to a clear choice with your reasons. When the station brings an offer with strings attached, weigh the long-term benefit against fairness to the other applicants and the integrity of your selection process.
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