But on the other end of the scale you have people saying "don't do it! Your time is worth more than that!" Resulting in a never ending internal struggle. 

As someone who is an aspiring designer and does truly want to make a name for herself, I find it so hard on where stand on this front. 

True, it's great exposure IF you win and you can win a prize. But it also sucks slaving away on a project for what could amount up to weeks of effort to never win! And yeah it can look great in your portfolio but you wouldn't expect a brain surgeon to do a surgery to get recognition or to win X amount. You certainly wouldn't expect them to have to pay a fee to do it either so why do people in the creative industries always seem to have to push that little bit further? 

Personally I love working on competition briefs even if I don't send them off but to push myself to try new ideas. But I do feel creative people do deserve more credit than they get... 

How do you feel on this subject? It is quite a controversial one!