My rule for finding internships so far has been simple: I target variety. This way, by the time I graduate, I have a very good idea of what I like and what I do

My rule for finding internships so far has been simple: I target variety. This way, by the time I graduate, I have a very good idea of what I like and what I don't. Being able to try a different sort of company for a short time with no adverse effects is great for exploring! Doing just small startups would be just as bad as only doing bigger enterprise companies. I started with a larger company and later found that I'm more interested in smaller companies; now I'm looking for different technologies (functional programming!), different industries (no more web stuff) and, in the far future, different locations (I'm bored of the Bay Area now). Coincidentally, I haven't seen anybody mention the last one, but I think spending the summer abroad or in New York would be really awesome. (That said, I'm not willing to sacrifice technically interesting work just to live elsewhere.) Of course, I say this as somebody who went through middle school, high school and now two years of college all in the Bay Area, so it's no doubt different for students from other universities.