Teenagers and college students hear it more than anything else, especially during the summer. Get a job, get an internship. It’s for your own good, it’s for your future! But there’s a big difference between a job and an internship.

Which one do you choose?

The second you step into college, you have to have some sort of internship lined up. If you don’t, it’s career death. Everyone needs an internship, it’s necessary to potentially get you into a good job in the future.

Employers look for that sort of thing, and if you’re without that on your resume, you’re already three steps behind the next person on their list.

Yeah, they’re important. But the majority of internships available to college students, and especially some of the good ones that will help you really get that dream job, are unpaid. And this is a huge problem. Yes, an internship is important for your career, but so is having money to live on.

Unfortunately, we live in a capitalist society that will literally kill you if you don’t make money, but we also live in one in which people aren’t paid nearly enough, and the toted jobs and internships don’t pay you at all.

Unpaid internships are one thing if you’re living with your parents over the summer. You can get by. Your wallet will get significantly thinner, which is a growing concern, but you can get by.

But if you’re on your own, or you’re in an internship that’s a semester-long or more, money becomes a much bigger issue. You literally have no income to live off of. You’re trying your best to do what you have to do, but there’s no payoff except for that much-desired “experience.”

The question is: should you just take a regular, minimum-wage paying job instead? It’s not glamorous. It won’t be fantastic on a resume. It likely won’t help you further your career in whatever you’re getting a major in.

But at some point in your life, it’s probably going to become necessary for a little while. The need for a paycheck will outweigh everything else. And you won’t like it, but you’ll have to do it.

Every college student comes across this dilemma at some point in their lives. I certainly have, every summer since college started, including this upcoming one. You need money, but you also need that experience, and it’s a never-ending cycle. This economy and job market are absolutely brutal. Who needs a living wage anyway?

In fact, who needs money at all? Not college students just struggling to get by!

In short, I don’t have an answer to this dilemma.

The situation is different for every person, and priorities are different. What you decide to go with can change by the month. It’s difficult, and I wish we didn’t have to choose between our dreams and not starving ourselves. The fact that we often have to means there is something very wrong with the system.

We’re already emptying the bank accounts to just go to college. Are we expected to suffer even more because companies don’t respect kids enough to even pay them a little? The system is exhausting, and I wish there was a better way.