The capstone course at my university, like many others, was to be matched up with someone in the community and be given an actual task from their business, usually with the understanding that we were likely to produce such crappy code that it was going to be discarded anyhow. (Which was broadly accurate.) My group happened to draw a lawyer's office, which wouldn't have necessarily been a problem, except their first move was to get us a to sign a heavy-duty nondisclosure agreement.
The prof brought this to us, and asked us if we were willing to sign this. My teammates were like, "uhhh", and by that point I'd been reading up enough on legal issues on the internet that I simply said "No." At which point my professor said "Yeah, I was just curious what your reactions would be. I was never going to let you sign these. Here's your new project...."
And forget "intern", we were paying for this course! It's amazing what papers people will push at interns and such.
If you're in that position, do not be afraid in the slightest to say no. One of two things will happen: They'll retract their request, or you'll get out of a bad situation before it turns really bad.
A NDA is a much different beast than a non-compete clause. I have signed NDAs to work on school projects before, but that did not really affect anything I did outside of the class project. I don't think an NDA would close off any job opportunities. The subject of the article signed a non-compete clause, which prevented him from getting a good job opportunity. I don't think those have much in common.
You're right in general, but not in this specific case. The NDA was so strong that if read as written it basically forbade us from ever using anything we learned with them, for any purpose, ever. It did not narrow itself down to internal operations.... which we would not have been privy to anyhow! We weren't going to be sitting in on trials or hearing about their cases anyways. It was almost stronger than what you would consider a "noncompete" in that sense.
And since it was a lawyer's office we were little inclined to assume they'd never exercise their claimed powers.
And again, we were paying for this course, not being paid. (In fact their "due consideration" clause alone was a bit amusingly handwavy. It was nearly "for the due consideration of being graciously allowed into their presence to bask in the glow of their wisdom.")
Many (most?) companies will get you to sign some kind of NDA when you work for them. I've had interns work for me and had them sign them without problems. You say yours was heavy duty, so maybe there was something unique about it, but otherwise I don't see the problem.
I've never really seen any internet advice saying not to sign an NDA, either. The only related thing is advice not to try and get a VC to sign an NDA - but you are an intern, not a VC, and you are working for the company, not trying to get money from them. That's very different.
An NDA for a non-paid position where you give your time and effort to a company sounds like a bit over the top.
If they can't imagine a way to make you productive when you give your labor freely without needing legal representation yourself then they're nuts and don't deserve your gift.
The prof brought this to us, and asked us if we were willing to sign this. My teammates were like, "uhhh", and by that point I'd been reading up enough on legal issues on the internet that I simply said "No." At which point my professor said "Yeah, I was just curious what your reactions would be. I was never going to let you sign these. Here's your new project...."
And forget "intern", we were paying for this course! It's amazing what papers people will push at interns and such.
If you're in that position, do not be afraid in the slightest to say no. One of two things will happen: They'll retract their request, or you'll get out of a bad situation before it turns really bad.