Behind The Mic With Joe Mathieu: Want To Get Rich? Get An Internship

BOSTON (CBS) – I looked up the word intern while preparing for this story.

Merriam-Webster defines it as "a student or recent graduate who works for a period of time at a job in order to get experience."

Nowhere does it mention the word money.

Yet the concept of paid internships is reality for a growing number of young people.  And for some of them, it's downright lucrative.

The job web site Glassdoor looked into this and I still can't believe what it found in its list of the 25 highest paying companies for interns.

At the top, a California-based software company called Palantir Technologies. It pays interns $7,012 a month on average.

Twitter pays almost that much. Facebook pays closer to $6,000, along with companies like Microsoft and eBay.

Tech companies dominate the list.

But Exxon-Mobil and Captial One are also in the top 25, paying interns thousands of dollars a month, which means these interns are getting paid above the nation's median household income.

These firms say they have to pay up to compete for top talent.

Still, there's a secondary definition for intern in the dictionary.

It's "to confine or impound," which sounds a lot more like my experiences as an intern.

Follow Joe on Twitter @joemathieuwbz

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