Civil engineering student asked to lay bricks during an unpaid internship, is this normal?
I’m a civil engineering student in Australia and I recently found an unpaid internship with a small construction company.
My first day is coming up, and the boss sent me an architectural drawing with brick set-out and wall dimensions. He told me that I would be laying bricks based on the drawing.
I’m happy to get hands-on site experience and I understand that practical construction knowledge can be useful for a future site engineer. However, I’m not sure whether actually laying bricks is normal or useful experience for a civil engineering intern, especially since the internship is unpaid.
Would you consider this valuable site experience, or am I basically being used as free labour?
I’d appreciate opinions from site engineers, project engineers, and people who started their careers in construction.