All nine Junior Class women at Brown University's Department of Computer Science interned at Microsoft this summer.

Intern Nell Elliott interviewed with Google and Apple as well, but chose to intern at Microsoft because she was able to meet the people she'd be working with in advance. Even if she had met her future coworkers at Apple and Google, she says it would be difficult to think she could enjoy them more than the team she ended up with at Microsoft, the Macintosh Business Unit (MacBU).

"I worked on real stuff," Elliott says. "My team treated me like an adult. They took me seriously. It's more like you just started working here than being an intern." She adds her team at Microsoft is relaxed, funny, and quirky, but also clearly dedicated to their work.

Intern Tess Avitabile felt the same way about her team. "I wasn't expecting people on my team to be such goofballs, and I'm so excited about it," she says. "They were able to get so much done while also having time to pull pranks, such as inserting David Hasselhoff songs into presentations. They are so competent and so silly. It was great."

After spending a summer working in Redmond (as well as hiking, biking, barbecuing, and hanging out), the women have a clearer picture of what they want for themselves.

Megan Hugdahl says her internship gave her a lot of respect for the "complexity of Microsoft products," and Lu Zeng says she has a new-found love for Visual Studio.

Avitabile said she had dismissed the idea of working at a technology company because she didn't think she was capable of it.

"My internship has been an incredible confidence booster, being able to dive in and understand complex systems and present myself as an adult to people," Avitabile says. "This summer has actually made me reconsider—it definitely seems reasonable now."

Read the original article with additional interviews and insights: here.