I want a summer internship where I can code.

(Ms. Vegetable) I'd vote for options 1 or 2. They will help you get a job after you graduate. I say this as a graduate of a small liberal arts college who worked in a physics lab coding in IDL for all of college. Specifically, it was astrophysics, and it has gotten me all 3 jobs after college. In fact, my current boss has told me he doesn't remember anything else about my interview. Take good notes in either case. See if you can do a final presentation at the end of the summer and do a good job - that summary will help you pull it all together and be able to talk about it in interviews. Don't worry about being on a state college campus where you don't know anybody - the rest of the people there will be ok. Exciting locations are for later. Random: see if you can study abroad. THAT is exciting. :)

You may also want to consider smaller companies. We took 2 CS students on as interns in our small company over the summer. Our IT guy pretty much has a job w/ us lined up after he graduates. Unfortunately our programming intern wasn't as good, but if you are it's great exp. as well as a possible job right after college. Also mefiMail me if you're in NJ.

I envy you. You are just 19 and making a great start with some skills that will be useful. Recently I took a remote sensing course and IDL was the language underpinning the geographic imaging software we used, called ENVI. I don't know where you are or if remote sensing projects happen where you are, but I think it's a really neat thing you could look into. Also spend some time looking at open source projects to see if there is something that is interesting to you. It looks to me like you just need that motivation to pull you forward. Then just contact the companies/institutions that do what you are interested in and try to get hired with them for the summer. The research option is valuable, but it doesn't seem to inspire you.

Talk to your teachers, TAs, advisors, counselors...everybody who might know more than you about this. There is a whole system set up for what you want to do, you shouldn't have to winnow the whole field yourself.

It depends on what you want to develop. My experience with REU was that while there was lots of coding going on, the oversight and mentoring can be hit or miss. Often the scientists involved are not particularly knowledgeable about good / modern coding practices. An REU is why I still sometimes write programs using the F77 standard.

drop me a memail.

By all means, apply to REU and Summer of Code, but you should also be applying for cs summer internships. Think about things you want to learn and experiences you want to have (specific language? specific OS? big company? small company? specific industry? specific geographic region?), and find companies that appeal to you. Your school ought to have some sort of career counselors to help you out. Also chat with your cs professors, who may be able to hook you up with friends or former students of theirs who work at companies that could use interns. Don't worry about your skills; you won't be hired to re-architect anything anyway. When you apply to be an intern, showing the initiative and enthusiasm can matter more than any specific skill. At your level, I'd advise against a part time job plus open source work. (I'm assuming you mean a barista/retail kind of job here. Your work at the lab sounds possibly worthwhile, but if you've been there a few summers already, better to try something new.) Unless you're very driven and motivated, perhaps passionate about a specific project, I think you'll get more out of something more structured.

Do you wanna go the traditional route or would you be open to working in entertainment? DreamWorks, Disney, and Pixar have phenomenal internships for CS folks like yourself.

I have something of a similar background to you: I also attend a SLAC with a CS department as you describe. Check your MeMail for some anecdata.