My first internship was this past summer with Motorola in Plantation, FL. They way that it is set up is very friendly towards interns and try's to match them well with their strengths. In my case my mentors were two people who really cared about what I was learning and made sure that I had an impact in some way. Oh I should mention that I worked in IDEN software development. Over the course of the summer they continuously gave me more and more challenging projects and from about a month in I was doing real coding projects that were going into production phones. One problem that I did see with first-time hires was the availability of their manager/mentor. I was lucky in that my cubicle was next to theirs so it wasn't a problem. First-time hires usually need lots of help in the beginning (I know I did).
Some things that can help in an internship are mentor/intern compatibility, the type of work (challenging to some degree, I don't know anyone that likes to file papers
),this goes in hand with giving the intern some responsibility, as well as feeling included (I really liked the fact that I got to go to all the team meetings and engage in some discussion). The occasional free lunches at nice restaurants were another added benefit that I very much enjoyed.
