By Yuna Cho

Students at Toronto Metropolitan University (TMU) say they’re feeling burdened by unpaid internships, exacerbated by mandatory internships that are required in some programs such as fashion and child and youth care.

Min Kim, a first-year nursing student at TMU, is currently fulfilling mandatory placement hours for her course requirements at a nursing home. As a first-year student she works an eight-hour shift once every two weeks. She said she also works part-time to support herself and afford her tuition fees.

The university launched a bursary for equity-deserving students in unpaid Work-Integrated Learning positions in October 2024, as previously reported by The Eyeopener.

As Kim advances through the program, her requirement hours will be increased up to 30 hours per week, only 10 hours less than a full-time job.

“I currently work part-time to cover my living expenses, so if I can’t work for four or five months, it would be a big financial hit,” said Kim. “I probably will find a higher paying job during the [summer] break to cover this cost.”

According to federal policy, unpaid internships are illegal, unless the intern is a student fulfilling requirements for an educational institution. In Ontario, the Employment Standards Act considers someone an employee if they receive training from an employer.

Dang* is a first-year accounting student at TMU who previously studied broadcasting at Centennial College. Dang said he finished four months of his required unpaid internship for broadcasting, and he got a full-time job offer from the same company.

Even though he had a part-time job while working during the internship, he said he wasn’t making enough money and would heaviliy rely on his credit card. “By the time I finished my internship, I owed $2,000 [on] my credit card,” he said.

According to a July 2025 federal research study, approximately 36 per cent of Canadian-born students found their first job through personal contacts and 25 per cent through a former employer.

Both students said their main reason for doing unpaid internships was for networking and building connections in their respective industries. Kim said building a connection at a large hospital seemed important for her to get a job after graduation. “For example, big hospitals like Sunnybrook, students prefer going there even if it’s far,” she said.

After two years, Dang pivoted from working in television to studying accounting, feeling overworked and not earning enough money. “What if [I] didn’t get the job right after the internship? I think about that all the time,” he said.

Dang also said connections are critical in the broadcasting industry. “Email every production company out there in Toronto, I can be almost 99 per cent positive that you will not get anything from [a] company,” he said.

Viet Vu, the manager, economic research at The Dais, thinks this professional connection is one of the essential requirements to get a job, and it has become one of the most important reasons why students consider unpaid internships.

Vu said building relationships with potential employers is crucial to the job search, and there is a clear pressure to establish professional relationships by any means necessary. He said this kind of pressure creates unfair access to opportunities.

“Think about the kind of students who are actually able to survive on an unpaid internship. Those are likely students who are already wealthy. Those are probably students who already have access to the monetary resources, and most likely through their parents or professional resources as well,” Vu said.

*This person’s name has been changed to protect their identity. The Eyeopener has verified this source.