I like to joke that I came into 
college as an idealistic liberal 
arts student and came out with 
a job in big tech. One day I was 
taking classes in political theory, 
philosophy and English rhetoric. 
The next thing I knew all I cared 
about was coding and passing 
technical interviews. 
I’m not alone in this experience. 
I have friends who started as 
compassionate pre-med students 
but became consultants; I know 
engineers who had high ambitions 
of saving the world but ended up 
with jobs in the military-industrial 
complex. 
These radical career shifts aren’t 
an indictment on any individual. 
Rather, they’re a reflection of 
a higher education system that 
is increasingly concerned with 

making its graduates “employable.”
English rhetoric wasn’t going 
to pay, but I was fairly certain 
that learning to code was. It was a 
pragmatic decision, driven by the 
fact that I wasn’t willing to accept 
more economic uncertainty than I 
had to. And it was better to know 
I had in-demand skills than hope 
someone would recognize the 
value of my liberal arts education. 
Rising student loan debt and 
a 
competitive 
entry-level 
job 

market 
demand 
that 
college 
students devote less time to 
learning for the sake of learning 
and more time to learning how to 
become employable. Educational 
accreditation 
emerged 
too, 
ensuring that students (mostly in 
master’s degree programs) had 
the right hands-on experience 
before entering a particular job 
market, such as specific courses 
engineering students need to take 
or requiring clinical experience 
for Masters of Public Health 
candidates.
Out 
of 
this 
comes 
the 
phenomenon of unpaid labor-as-
coursework. Different departments 
at Michigan call it different 
names; in the School of Social 
Work, master’s students have to 
complete over 900 hours of “field 
work” to graduate. In the School 
of Information, graduating seniors 
spend a year working on “capstone 
projects” with external clients. 

Engineering students can apply 
to work on “industry-sponsored 
teams” through the College of 
Engineering’s 
Multidisciplinary 
Design Program.
All of these programs serve 
similar purposes: to give students 
hands-on experience in their fields 
of study. 
Why? The PR-friendly answer 
is that experiential learning and 
client-based courses have been 
shown 
to 
improve 
students’ 

“application of theory in practice, 
motivation, 
management 
skills 
such as strategic planning, and 
professionalism.”
At the University of Michigan, 
however, 
these 
courses 
are 
often a waste of time at best and 
exploitative 
of 
undergraduate 
students at worst. 
***
One recent alum, who asked 
to remain anonymous for fear 
of 
professional 
repercussions, 
completed 
four 
client-based 
courses during her undergraduate 
and master’s degree programs 
at the School of Information. In 
this article, she’ll be referred to as 
Thea. In the School of Information, 
students in client-based courses 
work in teams and still meet 
regularly in the classroom with an 
instructor to learn about project 
management, 
consulting 
and 
professionalism.
Thea likened her experience to 

“busy work.” 
“A lot of the time you’re doing 
work that has no impact for the 
company or the client that you’re 
working 
for,” 
she 
explained. 
“It’s really framed as ‘ooh you’re 
helping them do these things.’ But 
in reality, had we not done these 
projects it would not make any 
difference in the client’s life.” 
While 
some 
students 
were 
struggling to see the value of 
experiential learning, others were 

essentially doing the jobs of full-
time employees. 
Engineering senior Mohnish 
Aggarwal, a computer science 
major, was interested in applying 
to CoE’s Multidisciplinary Design 
Program (MDP) and working 
with an industry-sponsored team. 
According to their website, the 
program “provides team-based, 
‘learn by doing’ opportunities” 
so students can “apply what you 
learn in class to engineering design 
projects.”
Despite 
his 
initial 
interest, 
Aggarwal 
changed 
his 
mind 
when he learned of the program’s 
exploitative nature. 
“For 
most 
companies 
(in 
MDP), you’re guaranteed nothing 
but (unpaid) work experience 
and college credit,” Aggarwal 
explained. “But these projects 
do 
benefit 
the 
companies 
monetarily, and the companies 
would otherwise need to hire a 
professional to complete them.” 
Recent 
corporate 
partners 
include General Motors (2021 
revenue $132 billion), Hyundai ($99 
billion) and JP Morgan Chase ($121 
billion). All of these companies 
could afford to pay students for 
their time but would certainly 
prefer not to have to. Instead of 
using the corporate world’s age-
old tricks to extract cheap labor, 
the University serves up eager 
students to them under the guise of 
learning. 
This isn’t to say that experiential 
learning isn’t without value, but 
there are few protections to ensure 
that students aren’t exploited. On a 
national level, unpaid internships 
have been regulated for years 
under the Fair Labor and Standards 
Act. Even if rules regarding unpaid 
internships often go unenforced, 
having books on the law can 
occasionally provide legal recourse 
for exploited students. At the very 
least, it incentivizes companies to 
meet some minimum standard for 
educational value.
It’s unclear if programs like 
MDP qualify as unpaid internships 
under 
Department 
of 
Labors 
(DOL) standards. Labor courts use 
the “primary beneficiary test” to 
determine if someone is an unpaid 
intern or an exploited employee. 
The test is vague and avoids setting 
hard criteria, and it’s unclear to 
what extent it applies to public 
institutions like the University. Two 

notables criteria that courts must 
consider are “the extent to which 
the intern’s work complements, 
rather than displaces, the work of 
paid employees while providing 
significant educational benefits 
to the intern” and “the extent to 
which the internship is tied to the 
intern’s formal education program 
by integrated coursework to the 
receipt of academic credit.” 
MDP and UMSI’s client-based 
courses seem to exist in a gray area 
between these two standards. Both 
include classroom components, but 
the first standard — that students 
don’t do the work of full-time 
employees but, rather, receive some 
educational benefit — is stickier. 
UMSI students are most definitely 
not doing the work of full-time 
employees, but it’s unclear how 
much educational value is in their 
capstone projects. 
MDP students’ experience, on 
the other hand, sounds a lot like 
they’re doing the work of full-time 
employees.
And the kicker: These students 
are paying the University for these 
opportunities. 
They’re 
paying 
to work for free, and it seems as 
though the law doesn’t care. 
***
Thea, whose master’s degree is 
in Library and Archival Science 
within the School of Information, 
did one project for an archival 
collection 
that 
was 
primarily 
“social media analysis, which 
isn’t something that the master’s 
program is trained in at all.” 
She spent hours examining how 
many likes and comments the 
archive’s Instagram account had. 
“At the end, we just presented 
a document that was like ‘we saw 
that posts of scenery were most 
popular.’ What does that provide 
for this client that they couldn’t see 
by just looking at the Instagram 
themselves?” she said. 
Thea had positive experiences 
in some of her client-based courses 
but knew she couldn’t count on 
UMSI for a consistent experience. 
“I know so many people in my 
bachelor’s and master’s cohorts 
who have really enjoyed the 
projects and been able to flex what 
they’ve learned,” Thea said. “But 
then there have been so many on 
the other side of that. Either the 
project that they got was so easy 
that they were just kind of messing 
around most of the time or it was so 

out of their wheelhouse that they 
were so stressed,” she said. 
Thea 
attributed 
students’ 
lackluster 
experience 
with 
experiential learning to UMSI’s 
Engaged Learning Office, which 
is responsible for client outreach 
and selection. Fundamentally, she 
thought the clients were too “hit or 
miss” to consistently provide high-
quality experiences to students. 
UMSI provides a list of client 
requirements 
for 
prospective 
partners — notably absent is 
any information about UMSI’s 
curriculum or selecting projects 
that are appropriate for students.
Sarah, a second-year Masters of 
Social Work (MSW) student who 
asked to remain anonymous due to 
fear of academic retaliation, echoed 
similar concerns to Thea. Social 
work students typically complete 
over 900 hours of work at field 
placements in order to graduate 
in accordance with accreditation 
requirements set by the Council on 
Social Work Education.
Sarah said she was fortunate to 
have a high-quality placement, but 
acknowledged that others were 
not as lucky. Per the School of 
Social Work’s guidelines, fieldwork 
supervisors must meet with the 
students for at least one hour a 
week. But according to Sarah, 
many of her peers had even less 
time with their supervisors and 
were provided with little to no 
mentorship. 
“Field placements are really, 
really uneven,” Sarah said. I’m 
getting a ton of education, it still 
sucks that (my placement) is 
making money on me seeing clients 
that I’m not getting a single penny 
for, but I feel like I’m getting a ton 
of attention from my supervisor,” 
she said. “I think so many people 
are neither making money, nor are 
they learning. I’m not making any 
money, but at least I’m learning.” 
In fall 2020, the University’s 
MSW 
students 
founded 
the 
Payment for Placement (P4P) 
campaign, which advocates for 
students to be paid a stipend while 
they complete their fieldwork. 
According to a survey administered 
by P4P, just 12% of MSW students 
receive stipends during their field 
practicum and 74% of students said 
they had to work an additional job 
to cover expenses.

For as long as I can remember, I’ve 
heard trains in the night. Railroads 
snake all along the Mississippi 
River, through Memphis, past its 
hallowed streets of soul music. The 
tracks run up the Hudson, through 
Rhinebeck, past its Dutch barns 
and vast orchards.
Only now, in Ann Arbor, where 
I hear the bells and whistles on the 
banks of the Huron, the sounds of 
cargo hurrying to its destination, 
do I finally realize how empty 
my nights would feel without the 
sounds of trains.
I’ve relied on the railroads for 
most of my life: not just for white 
noise while I sleep, but for travel. 
My dependence on the Amtrak 
system led me to wonder what 
motivates others to embark on a 
train, and what specific pros and 
cons accompany rail travel in a 
small city without a subway system.
To investigate the stories of 
those who rely on long distance 
public transit, I set out to the Ann 
Arbor station, positioned at a quaint 
corner of Kerrytown, under an 
overpass. The little brick station is 
familiar, but tonight, eerie. It seems 
almost abandoned, walls swimming 
in the fading autumn light.
Once there, I wait for trains, 
but more importantly, for those 
embarking on them.
***
Clutching tight to my mother’s 
hand, I waited for my first train, in 
Upstate New York, almost a decade 
ago. It came in an instant, kicking 
up shrouds of dust and a great 
clamor. At my eye level, sturdy 
steel wheels loomed and immense, 
miscellaneous 
cogs 
and 
gears 
assembled tenderly in a great mass, 
as if some great mechanical beast 

had thundered into my path.
The conductor, clad all in navy, 
topped with a signature cap, 
emerged though the widening door, 
arm outstretched to welcome us 
aboard.
“Hurry,” he seemed to say, “I 
couldn’t stop this thing even if I 
wanted to.”
The warm wooden walls evoked 
great spectacle, as if men in tuxedos 
were soon to serve us steak on 
little silver platters. Someone had 
carefully laid out carpet long ago, 
all along the aisles, and though the 
seats were covered in protective 
plastic, the train car screamed of 
magnificence, of great days long 
since passed.
The beast chugged steadily, 
every hour of every day, to and 
from New York City, to the south. It 
made for great company, this great 
mechanical beast, and I grew and 
changed alongside its plastic seats 
and fading carpet. Through teenage 
angst and newfound confidence, 
I rode ceaselessly, back and forth, 
up and down the river, all the while 
resting my head against a sweaty 
backpack or fiddling with a new 
day’s crossword puzzle.
This summer, I decided, it was 
time to let the train carry me back 
to Ann Arbor.
With bags packed and a family 
wished goodbye, I boarded again, 
tentatively, headed north, not south.
When 
the 
ticket 
collector 
appeared, I asked her, “Can I just 
stay in this one seat? All the way to 
Ann Arbor?”
“Sure,” she explained, “The 
train decouples and reassembles 
at specific stops. This segment 
is headed all the way through to 
Chicago.”
Spectacular.
As the miles passed, at first, I 
simply put in earbuds and watched 
the land fly by outside the window. 

I saw more of the northeastern 
countryside than I’d ever seen, 
distracted as I usually was by traffic 
and the distinct concentration that 
comes along with the operation of 
a motor vehicle. Herons flew low 
over the marsh. Rows and rows of 
crops grew ever steadily toward the 
sunlight.
As dark settled in, I turned 
inward, toward books and movies, 
rising only occasionally to stretch 
my legs or purchase a snack from 
the kindly man working near the 
front.
My evening was sleepless: a 
marked con, I will admit.
Try as I might, twisting my neck 
to and fro at different angles, I could 
never quite get comfortable against 
the unforgiving glass panes of the 
window. Strange to think I had 
more legroom than an airplane, a 
lower angle to recline my seat.
Perhaps the excitement of the 
train journey kept me awake. 
Perhaps the prospect of Ann Arbor. 
Who could say?
***
I discovered the long-range 
public 
transportation 
in 
Ann 
Arbor my freshman year, when I 
found myself lonely, stressed and 
desperately in need of a weekend 
vacation.
Luckily, a friend at the University 
of Notre Dame offered to put me 
up on his couch, and I commenced 
planning 
an 
affordable 
travel 
plan. As an out-of-state student, 
my family was 600 miles away 
and couldn’t be relied upon to 
provide me with airfare or a car 
to borrow. After a night of hasty 
internet research, I set off to South 
Bend, printed tickets in hand, with 
a meticulously planned web of 
Amtrak trains and charter buses.
Since then, I’ve increased my 
weekend wandering to Columbus, 
Kalamazoo and Traverse City, 

almost entirely via public transit. 
The stations where train cars 
stop along the way, waiting to be 
decoupled and reassembled at half 
a hundred stations, are brimming 
with distinct quirks.
Ann Arbor’s is no different. 
It’s quiet inside. The ticket office 
within appears closed, the waiting 
room vacant.
Fading 
light 
of 
evening 
trickles through tall windows, 
overpowering 
the 
fluorescent 
lights inside the waiting room. 
In lieu of any music in the lobby, 
background noise streams from 
the traffic on Depot Street, a 
chorus of mechanical growls. The 
abrasive sound outside feels almost 
a mockery of the more ancient 
method of travel fostered within 
these walls.
A 
University 
of 
Michigan 
doctoral student, Traci Lombre, is 
the first to arrive. She tells me she 
always travels via train when her 
schedule permits it. The company 
she works for flew her to Michigan, 
and offered to fly her back, but 
she refused. “(The train) gives 
me more time to stretch out and 
get work done while still heading 
somewhere.”
“It’s just efficient,” she explains. 
“Sometimes you just don’t want to 
drive.”
Another traveller, Reid Charles, 
used to be a licensed pilot, but he 
hasn’t flown in three years. “I’ve got 
over a million miles in the air,” he 
says, “but (planes) are too crowded. 
Lousy. I prefer Amtrak.”
Many of those I spoke with were 
frequent commuters on Amtrak 
trains. None mentioned feeling any 
insecurity over their safety, instead 
criticizing the scheduling delays or 
surge ticket prices.
While comfort and convenience 
are 
crucial, 
I 
was 
shocked 
to discover that no one cited 

environmental concerns as their 
motivator, despite an amassing 
pile of evidence on public transit’s 
potential 
for 
reducing 
carbon 
emissions.
Though it’s perhaps unrealistic 
to expect others to base their travel 
plans on climate sustainability, 
(particularly in the wake of news 
that many celebrities’ private jet 
emissions can dwarf an average 
citizens’ lifetime emissions in a 
single year) I maintain that reduced 
carbon output is a key factor in the 
necessity for public transportation.
Content in the knowledge that 
you’re enacting a small positive 
change, spending the day watching 
the miles roll by, has always been, 
for me, well worth any minor 
hassles that may arise. 
Our Ann Arbor station is the 
epitome of functional. Neither 
pretty nor ugly, it simply rests there, 
as if anxious to hurry on with its 
proceedings, just like the many 
passengers I encountered.
Distinct 
from 
an 
airport, 
however, it emanates a quiet sense 
of charm.

While everyone I spoke with 
criticized delays or prices, they did 
so with smiles on their faces, as if 
they were clued in on a secret, and 
I knew it too. The antique magic 
of the train station was a rare gem, 
and we were all lucky to have 
discovered it.
As I prepared to walk away 
for the night, letting the glass 
door close behind me and bracing 
against the chill of the night air, a 
thundering rattle came upon the 
station suddenly, followed by the 
occasional screech of scraping 
metal and the soft, and periodic 
blaring of the horn I can never quite 
escape hearing in my sleep.
The train hurtled past with 
all the might of the Industrial 
Revolution, rusted steel crates 
smattered with the new age graffiti 
of a hundred cities’ trainyards, and 
watching it pass, I was overcome 
with a childish glee. This machine 
would keep on chugging. Long after 
I’m gone.
Statement 
Columnist 
John 
Jackson can be reached at writejpj@
umich.edu.

JOHN JACKSON

Statement Columnist

GABBY CERITANO/Daily

Read more at MichiganDaily.com

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Design by Reid Graham

Wednesday, September 28, 2022 — 5
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