I went to a military academy (and now I interview a lot at Google, too). Doing a lot of soul searching now... But seriously, I agree with the top comment abou

I went to a military academy (and now I interview a lot at Google, too). Doing a lot of soul searching now... But seriously, I agree with the top comment about interviewing at Google, and as far as the military academy "hazing" it's generally misunderstood. It's very, very rare for an upperclassman at my particular school to be cruel in the movie-sense, or what I think is the stereotypical fraternity-sense. More common is an institionalized set of standards for the freshmen that may seem overly tough or even arbitrary but serve several purposes: a) they give the freshman a crash course in being accountable for details, b) they give the upperclassman a crash course in enforcing accountability and holding others to high standards, and c) they create a sense of shared hardship and camaraderie. These are actually all very important lessons before a second lieutenant takes on responsibility for decisions that could mean life or death for his or her soldiers (which, in the case of my graduating class, was a reality for us as quickly as 4 months after graduation). You have to force the upperclassmen to come out of their shells and make the freshmen wear their uniform correctly, or make their bed correctly, etc. so that when they graduate they will have the courage to tell their soldiers that they really do need to inspect the vehicles, or maintain the weapons, or wear their safety gear. It takes practice to be accountable for standards on a team. It's not supposed to be about making people suffer for the fun of it, but of course there are jerks everywhere.