Guest

My name is Carlos Mark Vera. I'm the co-founder and executive director for Pay Our Interns. Pay Our Interns is best known for having convinced Congress to pass legislation back in 2018 to pay their own interns. It was $14 million. And then just last month we convinced them to go above that and also fund White House and State Department internships. And this is the first time in history. I started in Congress as an unpaid intern. When I started, that was my freshman year of college, and I couldn't really ask my parents to help me out. So the end result to make it work was, I was interning about 30 hours a week, I was working 20 hours a week and then I was taking 5, 6 classes as a 17 year old. The moment where I decided, okay, I wanna do something about this, was when I found out that my mentee had skipped out on buying groceries to pay for the dry cleaning costs for his unpaid internship. So at that moment I said, you know what? I'm gonna start this organization, right? Cuz I see that most of us have to do an internship and there's no organization fighting to expand these paid opportunities, right? Have goals, have a sense of direction, but sometimes life has a way of throwing wrenches at what you want, right? I did not know in any million years starting school that I was gonna end up leading a national organization fighting to end [INAUDIBLE]. Stop trying to compete with others and stop trying to rush through life. Just take life day by day. 

I actually don't think there's one right path to get to where I'm at. For me, internships were most important in my career trajectory rather than what I majored in.

When I started Pay Our Interns, I had no money and wasn't getting paid. It was at the sacrifice of my own financial well-being. I learned that the work matters but so do you. You need to take care of yourself too.

My typical day consists of meetings with CEOs, elected officials, or chiefs of staff. I also spend time doing media interviews, reviewing policy, attending events, and writing opinion pieces.

Carlos Mark Vera

About Carlos Mark

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