Bridgewater vs. D.E. Shaw

I'm a current business school student at an M7 (one of the perennially top ones, if that contributes) who intended to go through MBB recruiting, didn't take networking sufficiently seriously for my demographic, ended up with just one first round interview, got a final, but got dinged.

Subsequently I took the throw-shit-at-the-wall approach, and mysteriously / virtually miraculously landed offers at D.E. Shaw and Bridgewater. For D.E. Shaw, it's as a generalist (in either corp dev, macroeconomic research, or office of the COO - my choice to be sorted; suffice it to say, I'm not going to be a quant or a trader); for Bridgewater, senior management associate. The purists on this forum may be retching right now; please bear with me, as I'm a total f****ing n00b and need your sage advice even though I won't be "front office".

I feel more irrationally attached to the D.E. Shaw role because the interview was more technically strenuous (drawing binary trees, some moderately difficult probability and discrete math) whereas Bridgewater seemed totally satisfied to simply probe my subconscious. Fine.

What I want to know is: 1) what do people here actually know of and think of these sorts of roles, even at traditionally otherwise elite firms? Is their skill development transferable to roles in other industries, as MBB consulting allegedly is?
2) If I had to accept one, even for only the summer, which should I accept - especially if I were interested in re-recruiting for MBB full time in the fall?
3) It seems D.E. Shaw's generalist program may be better regarded, at least by virtue of selectivity, than Bridgewater's senior management associate internship. Is there any truth to that? Would it matter for development or exit opps?

Thanks for any help on this... these programs lack a ton of discussion.

 
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