CareerCup

Hi, first of all I want to say thanks to Gayle for the awesome work on the book and online resources. I was reading the introduction section of CtCI and I have a doubt regarding the "remote" preparation to the interview. I see that getting an internship as soon as possible seems to be very important, but I don't understand one thing.

If one is not able to land an internship at a top company like Google or Microsoft early on, would it be better to still do one at a worse company (like a "consulting" firm or less renown company) or at this point dedicating to personal projects that are more interesting that the job you would do there would be evaluated more?

Also, how should a student not in his final year prepare to be admitted to an internship? I've read that internship selection processes can be pretty selective already, and you wouldn't even have the previous internships as a plus on your resume.