Helpful internships outside the industry?

[iSmartMan]

I'm currently a college student hoping to become a game programmer, and I'd like to get an internship this summer that would be appealing on a games industry resume. At the moment, I've got a contact inside a major local developer who not only said he'd be willing to recommend me for a QA tester position, but also said that just mentioning on my application that I am a Computer Science major at my university would almost guarantee me a position anyway. However, he told me that the best time to apply for a "during summer break" tester position (as opposed to a "start immediately" tester position) would be mid-to-late spring, and my parents are really getting on my case about exploring other options. There aren't very many other developers in my area that would be very commute-friendly (on average, those developers would require a 2 hour commute each way), so I was thinking of also considering internships outside the industry. What sorts of internships outside the games industry would you recommend that are likely to look good on a game programmer's resume?

[tsloper]

A game QA internship would look great on your resume.
A non-game programming internship would look reasonable on your resume.
If you have paid work on your resume that's totally unrelated to games, that can look good too (it shows that you understand "job").

[yaustar]

Originally Posted by tsloper

A game QA internship would look great on your resume.
A non-game programming internship would look reasonable on your resume.
If you have paid work on your resume that's totally unrelated to games, that can look good too (it shows that you understand "job").

I disagree with that personally and would prefer to see a non-programming internship over a QA one as I know then they have worked with a programming team in a company environment.