Students in the Music Industry program at the State University of New York at Oneonta are subject to a grossly unfair and unjustly demanding internship experience, which is a mandatory requirement to qualify for graduation. 

The Music-Internship program is deceitful and lacks a basic level of transparency. On the Internship rubric (link) directly provided by Oneonta staff, it explicitly states students are only required to complete 3 credits or 120 hours of work. These requirements are not honored by SUNY Oneonta, and students are instructed and coerced to only accept credit for 40 hours of work after completing 120 hours. This subsequently requires students to complete three (3) semesters of work while being credited only one (1).

This painstaking program forces many Music Industry students to graduate late, which negatively impacts SUNY Oneonta’s on-time graduation statistics and restricts students from moving on to finding paid positions in the music industry. The internship requirements also restrict students from continuing to master's programs, as it delays completion and achievement of the Music Industry bachelor's degree.

The Music Industry internship program at SUNY Oneonta is not designed to benefit the students but instead forces a burden of copious free labor on to already overworked undergraduates.

We, the students of SUNY Oneonta, demand to be properly credited for our work in the Music Industry internship program and request the proper requirement of 120 hours of qualified work to be honored by the University.