I'm a junior at the University of Washington, and I was faced with similar decisions last summer and this summer. Last summer, I went with the Big Powerhouse, a

I'm a junior at the University of Washington, and I was faced with similar decisions last summer and this summer. Last summer, I went with the Big Powerhouse, and I was pretty disappointed. It wasn't challenging, I wasn't working on interesting stuff, and I wasn't really learning anything. This summer, I'm going with the Internet Startup, and all indications seem to be that it will be a much better time. Then again, my Big Powerhouse was Microsoft, so that may have had something to do with it. Even so, you can look at it in terms of the affect you'll have on the company as a whole. If you're in the Big Powerhouse, you're doing 1/1000th of the work. If you're in the Internet Startup, you're doing 1/30th. This means you'll be working on more important (and thus probably more interesting) stuff.