Art Research Collaboration Reviews

Everyone working here is an unpaid intern, many of whom are full-time. Betty has the interns doing personal legal work for her that is clearly outside of their internship descriptions. She is very inflexible and unwilling to make any changes to the way the studio runs despite numerous complaints. She does not understand that her current project is completely, 100% dependent on these interns, who are actually losing a significant amount of money to travel to her studio every day. She does not appreciate the work that anyone does for her. Four people quit in one day and she didn't even mention it to us - she pretended that it didn't happen. She is disrespectful, dismissive, immature, and embarrasses the interns in front of the whole studio when they make mistakes, making personal jabs at them. At least one intern left the studio in tears the day she quit. Working 9-6 everyday is also ridiculous and unnecessary for the work that the interns do, especially the language researchers. There is zero supervision and often we went entire days without even seeing her. She never shared any work that she did, though we were all required to inform her of what we did the day before. There is no training and absolutely no one in the studio is benefitting except for her, which I believe is illegal for an unpaid internship. The studio is so poorly run because there is zero incentive to work for her. I even had to email the studio a few days before I started because no one had contacted me in months! We were stuck there because we needed something for our resumes, but it's not even worth it. You are making a huge mistake if you decide to take an unpaid internship at Art Research Collaboration - The Betty Beaumont Studio.

to begin, the responsibilities listed on the internship description does not reflect that of the actual internship position and experience as a whole. an internship is suppose to allow an individual/student to apply their skills and knowledge to the internship, as well as to acquire a new set of skills so that they may be able to add it onto their resume. however, interns are not allowed to use or display any of the material that they've worked on after the internship since it is a set rule in the studio. in addition, interns don't really acquire a new set of skills since the tasks that are given to them are basic and monotonous. these "internships," unfortunately, do not benefit the intern since the tasks that are assigned to them appear to be the responsibility of someone with more authority: research, photography, personal legal issues, etc. second, it doesn't seem as though the interns dedication and hard work is recognized since they receive negative and unhelpful feedback, as well as unnecessary and rude side comments when interns try their best to perform tasks to the best of their ability. interns are embarrassed by comments on their minute grammatical errors when they speak in morning meetings and when interns may have not performed a task to a perfection. these interns work 8 hours a day, 5 days a week, without money for food or transportation, and arrive home late - when asked to leave just 30 minutes earlier to catch an earlier train, interns are questioned about their commitment when their valuable work clearly speaks for itself. ironically, there's no real "collaboration." theres a lacks patience and understanding and poor communication skills - instead of encouraging interns and helping them, interns are put down and there just a lack of professionalism; it truly creates a hostile working environment. lastly, to run an internship program or to obtain volunteers, legally, there must be an existing staff to oversee the interns and to supervise them... there's no existing staff within the studio. as stated previously, the interns are dependent on doing all of the work so there is no actual supervision going on in reference to the work itself - only critique. therefore, the students/individuals who "volunteer" or "intern" at the studio should actually be paid for the work that they do. there are multiple non-profit arts organizations that receive grants to pay for their facility and their workers/interns so the interns should actually be paid for all of their hard work, especially since it was seen by one of the former interns that there was money put to the side to pay employees/interns. the reviews listed previous to this are fully true to the internship and studio experience.