We have three software engineering interns with us (travel startup, 20 employees) this summer from various parts of the country, we shatter most of these myths:

We have three software engineering interns with us (travel startup, 20 employees) this summer from various parts of the country, we shatter most of these myths: 1) All of our interns are shipping live code and pushing to production. We assigned them real projects that our other engineers would have done and pair them with a mentor who has expertise in that area. Our intern standards are that we would hire them today if they weren't in school so they are ready to handle real projects. 2) At a startup, specs and scope are both subject to change without notice but that's the norm so not isolated to interns. 3) We rely on our mentors to find a schedule that works for them but we also throw a lot of team events on the calendar so interns feel like they're a part of the large company. Many of our full time employees started with us as interns and we often keep them on part-time even after their internships if we really want to them to join us after they graduate.