I would just like to say I feel I can relate to what pg is referring to. Last summer I worked as an intern for a fairly well respected and very large company.

I would just like to say I feel I can relate to what pg is referring to. Last summer I worked as an intern for a fairly well respected and very large company. I must say that I feel the experience was rewarding and that I learned quite a bit. But I did feel a little bit like the caged animal in zoo that Paul described. One small example: You couldn't just push your work from dev(elopment) to prod(uction) - regardless of the thoroughness of testing, we had to go through the company's bureaucratic change management system which, while I understand its purpose theoretically, in fact only wasted time. Perhaps its just that I'm still a bit young and would like the ability to roam more freely. Getting to the other item pg mentioned, the team building excursions, I experienced that last summer in the form of a scavenger hunt. Granted this company is well respected, and that many of the students came from top colleges, I got the feeling that somehow people felt "accomplished" through their sheer acceptance to the internship program. One fellow intern commented to me as we were passing random people on the street. "We work for X. We're better than you." It sounds pretty ridiculous but he was simply voicing the same sentiment that many of the interns passively expressed through body language. There was this atmosphere of complacency (particularly outside the office) that bothered me. I think this took away from the drive to succeed. The same drive that got many of these smart students to this point.