Interns.

Lately, I’ve been hearing/seeing more and more debate involving interns and what a company should or should not allow them to do.

Don’t let your intern develop your social media presence! Don’t let your intern pitch a story to reporters! Don’t let your intern interact with clients! Don’t let your intern learn or the world will implode and everyone will blame you personally!

Okay, so I made up the last one. But seriously…how am I not the only one upset by this?

I have held three internships in my short life. Each one very different, with the vague commonality of public relations or communications. One was with a private online startup, one was with the federal government, and the other was in health care. I did everything from copywriting to party planning to missile sales promotion to pitching heartwarming stories about stroke survivors. You want diverse experience, you got it!

I don’t recall ever being told I couldn’t do something that my superiors were doing…in fact, in 2 of the 3 internships I was actually expected to carry the many of the same responsibilities as my senior staff members. I can also assure you that no one has EVER asked me to make coffee or fetch bagels. I was treated as a professional, whose knowledge–however naive or scarce–and opinions were valued. Sometimes, I was coached and then given the opportunity to do things on my own. Other times, I was thrown head first into the fire and had to figure things out as I went along. Sometimes I succeeded profoundly and other times I failed miserably.

But because of that? I learned. I learned so much that I can guarantee you that without these opportunities I would not have my job today.

And you know what else happened? I positively contributed, in a quantifiable way, to the efforts of each one of the organizations I worked for. Yep, that’s right they benefited, in varying degrees, from my work (and I have the references to prove it).

That’s what internships are all about. It’s not just a way for businesses to obtain cheap labor–it’s a quid pro quo relationship in which a business offers experience, knowledge and mentorship in exchange for work, ideas and results.

I understand perfectly that there are risks involved in relinquishing control to an intern and that not all tasks are appropriate for interns…but if you seriously fear that your intern is capable of compromising your brand, what does that say about your internship program or your recruitment process?

Shouldn’t you be hiring capable interns to begin with? Whom you trust? Shouldn’t you be training them? Mentoring them? MONITORING them?

I just don’t get it. Has everyone forgotten that really, when you think about it, weren’t we all interns once?