Life After 50

Savvy students know about the power of the internship. It is an unpaid way to get your foot in the door of a company and learn whether or not you like it and they like you. Along the way, you pick up skills, network with some high powered executives and pretty much leave yourself open to whatever comes your way.

In this job market, it turns out that students are not the only ones interning. As MSNBC reported last week, some middle aged freelance writers are interning at a web start up to gain cutting edge computer skills. The employer is wowOwow, which stands for women on the web, a web site targeted to women over 40 started by such heavy hitters as Peggy Noonan, Lesley Stahl and Liz Smith. And two of their interns are fifty somethings Ann Hodgman, a freelance writer in a dry spell, and Lois Draegin, a former editor at TV Guide who is unemployed.

You can read what they told Today show host, David Gregory, here, but suffice it to say that these two women are making the most of their situations, including learning new computer skills taught to them by an intern supervisor who is 24--the same age as Hodgman's daughter.

I'm all for learning new skills regardless of your age (who says you can't get a Master's Degree after 50?!) but I find it hard to believe that these women in the media field were not up to speed with computer skills. Come on? How did this freelance writer do her research and how did the editor edit? They had to know the basics, and frequently all you need is a refresher course now and then at your handy Mac store (usually free) and the world is your oyster.

No, I think they are doing what every other enterprising student who lands an internship does: trying to parlay it into a full time job, or at the very least a great freelance article. Smart. Savvy. And incredibly good publicity for their employer as well as themselves.

I leave you with words of advice from Marci Alboher, a writer who focuses on career and workplace trends: "You have to take the initiative and pitch this to someone because often [the position] doesn't exist." But if an employer is presented with the opportunity to hired a seasoned professional for free, who wouldn't jump a the chance?