I was very glad that I took the internship. Let’s get one thing straight – Florida sucks. =p In spite of that, I had a great time and learned a lot. There certainly was good structure, but the thing that really impressed me was when I out paced that structure and asked for more responsibility, they gave it to me. It was the kind of dynamism that no one expects to see in large corporate culture.

As far as living conditions were concerned, they were very accommodating (even gave us a living stipend), and would not allow us to work more than a 40 hour week without first getting overtime approved by our supervisors. So while yes, I did decide to work a couple 60 hour weeks, I was properly compensated.

While I’m not prepared to discuss exact figures, EA does pick up interns for full time positions, and (at least in my case) they were more than generous compared to the industry standard. Not to mention the fact that, this time, I’m going to California. =)

P.S. John, say hi to Jackie for me! =)

Yeah, I’ll probably be working really hard but that’s okay. Have you ever listened to an intern complain about how he or she doesn’t have *anything* to do at his job because they were clearly unsure of how to integrate an intern? That doesn’t happen at EA. EA interns are used for more challenging tasks than coffee retrieval.

If it ends up being a great experience, I’ll definitely have an in with the company and will hopefully continue working there when I graduate (our university relations manager quoted 75% hiring rate.) If it ends up being a poor experience, it is only for one summer after all, I’ll still have great resume material, and I’ll have first-hand knowledge of what it is like to work at a major game dev studio.

So, while “intern = cheap labor” might be one part of the value proposition for EA, I feel, as a student, that there is *tremendous* value for the intern as well.