I've been interning at Leidos for two summers, and while working has been very educational, I find the corporate culture suffocating. Ex we have to use company laptops with bloated Win7 installs with security software that prevents installing newer Virtual Box versions among other things. Are there companies that do "bring your own device" and don't require strict time recoding?
Bethesda might be your best bet
Here's my advice. It's an internship and it's a great learning and networking opportunity. Sure, they may have managed PC builds and you have to track when you're working, but it's an internship and these are good skills to learn to work with. If you can make it in a corporate world, you can make it in a more leading back environment too. Fewer people transition well from laid back to corporate.
Would you be willing to relocate for the summer to Austin, TX?
Paypal in Hunt Valley
Check out stackoverflow careers in the D.C. area.
>we have to use company laptops with bloated Win7 installs with security software That's typical at even some smaller companies too. But check out KeyTech. Medical device design firm...they do awesome work and have a great culture.
I have friends who have worked in the applied physics laboratory and enjoyed their time there. If you're willing to commute to D.C. there are also more options there, mostly in the consulting realm (I know people at Booz Allen Hamilton, capital one, Deloitte, Accenture, and those places usually also hire software people)