Hello everyone, I've been gone for a while, but I'll try to be more active. So now onto my actual question.
Primarily, you need a little background on my school. We are a small, independent, college prep school with under 400 students in pre-school, kindergarden, elementary, middle, and high school. The schools "claim to fame" would be its Immersion Program that takes place in the high school. For a one month period of time, all regular classes stop, and you "immerse" yourself in one topic. A lot of these are structured, like taking trips to other countries to learn about their culture (This year the major trips were to Turkey, the Galapagos Islands, and to the Bahamas). Other immersions are small and local, where you learn about photography, biking, building computers, etc.
The type of Immersion I am interested in next year is called an "independent immersion", where I submit an idea of an topic that would be completely student led to the administration, and with their approval I can choose to focus on that topic for a month. Examples this year were a kid who studied C++ and developed and iPhone app that was then published (if you're interested, it's called "Cingo!", it's like checkers) and someone who shadowed a famous chef who's name escapes me. I am interested in learning more about 3d modeling for video games, or physics programming in games. I know they are very different subjects, but regardless I am interested. So my question is should I attempt to travel to a local college of art and technology and learn from a professor for 3 weeks, or fly out to a major development company (ActiVision, Interplay, 2KGames, etc.) and try to learn from someone actually practicing their profession. Also, who would I need to contact if I did the latter.
I know that was a little long winded, but any help is appriciated. After military service, this a career I really hope to chase, and this would definitely be a big step ahead for me.

My understanding is that college courses don't actually do a very good job of covering the tools and techniques actually used in the gaming industry, so you'd probably learn more if you could spend a bit of time with an actual development studio. However, you'd probably have much more success contacting a smaller studio rather than one of the major players. In larger organizations the folks doing the actual work tend to be more isolated from outside communications, so your requests would most likely be handled by the communications black hole known as HR (you could still give it a shot, just don't expect much). Just about all companies out there have contact info on their web sites, but who actually deals with this correspondence depends on the size and organization of the company. Basically your best shot is if you can get in contact with one of the actual developers and then have them pull for you with whoever is making the decision on the matter. If you can make use of personal connections to get directly in contact with a developer then that will really help to streamline the whole process.

I was thinking along the same lines. However, I have already asked around, and the only programmer we have any contact with is a family friend who develops software for windows, not quite game creation.
Of course, I realize I am aiming extremely high with those major companies. So out of curiosity, are there any other minor companies that may be easier to get ahold of? Preferably U.S. based.

Now ask yourself; why would any professional want to invite some random fool around to peek over his shoulder and show off his complete ignorance for a week?
You won't learn anything from watching a programmer. Programmers sit and program. That's what they do.
And no serious development studio would let you anywhere near their code, not even just glancing over somebodys shoulder.
You're better off learning the theory first. To become a game programmer, you need a very solid base in current-gen technology, languages, as well as maths on a semi-advanced level. Without these skills, you will never succeed in practice.

Honestly, of the two things you mentioned (modelling and programming physics libs), neither of those are really things you need to go to a game studio for, and are things you probably shouldn't.
Physics libs: I am going to assume you mean making your own, not using a library. As such, you would want to either look for groups doing research on those, or attempt to convince something like the branch of nVidia in charge of PhysX or the guys who do Havok.
Modelling: Your best bet is going to be to find a hippie artist (university is probably the best bet). Will cover all the important stuff outside of actually meeting deadlines and the like.
As for who to contact: Probably their PR guy, if they don't have an actual internship opportunity. I am sure your school can help you figure that out.

Stonebro, is there are a reason that you feel the need to act like an ass? You have to realize that I'm not completely ignorant in how games are developed. I don't think that I will be able to learn how to create a game in just this small time frame.
As far as why a professional would wish to have me, that is very simple. Things like this result in good PR. Also, Immersion is taken very seriously at my school. Often times they fund projects such as this, and would be willing to pay the company to allow this to happen. I realize the issue with the source code, and I am sure they would not allow me access to such important files. That is partly the reason that I am more leaning toward the 3D Development aspect. Remember, I did not say that I need to go to some development company, anyone that could give me an introduction to some of the programs used would be perfectly acceptable. I figured that because this community is so heavily based on games, there would probably be someone, somewhere in the USA that would know a company or school interested in something like this.
Gundato, while I'm positive you were being sarcastic, I have to go to credible sources for this. I can't find some "hippie artiest". At the end of the project, independent projects have to write a report on what it was like. Deadlines and all. As far as the PhysX idea, even if you were not being serious, I appreciate the idea.

sk8ing:
I think the appropriate answer is that it depends on your existing skill set. The gaming industry is a mature industry and from a programming/modelling standpoint, they will be looking for people with those skills already in place. I'm not saying shadowing a programming team is a bad idea, its just you may not get as much out of it without that background technical knowledge
Take for example, the Google Summer of Code project.
While there isn't a "Video game" college major per se, there are plenty of comprehensive courses/majors in programming and graphic design. While they are more broad in scope, they give you the background you need to break into the industry.
I'd suggest, if programming/modelling is pretty new to you, an experienced teacher at a school might be a better learning experience. If they are old hat to you, learning what skills to refine for future employment in the industry might be better accomplished visiting a studio.
Ps- This immersion program sounds pretty nice. Its a shame more school don't offer opportunities like that.

While stonebro put things rather bluntly, he does touch on a good point. Using an employee's time to show someone the ropes is not a trivial investment for any company, and usually they'll want to get something back from such an investment. One angle you could approach it from is to try to tie the 3-4 week shadowing into something like a summer internship. Those initial 3-4 weeks would then be basically a training period, with the company then being able to get something in return for that training during the actual internship. Basically try to set the thing up such that you're not just asking for a handout, but rather offering something in return.

I have no idea if you'd have any luck with them at all, but it seems to be a better shot than a major game studio.
http://gambit.mit.edu/
It's a collaboration between Singapore and MIT that studies the development of games as a medium (paraphrase from their website).
I don't know where they are located, but it appears that they have labs in Cambridge, MA (at MIT) and in Singapore.
Good luck with your ambitious project, and good show for aiming high. You won't be satisfied with whatever you do it you think that you didn't at least try.
Oh, and let us know if you have any luck.

Have you developed games? Do you have extensive game programming experience? If the answer to both questions is no, you do not know how games are developed, except for a basic impression of that fact that programmers program, artists create art, musicians create music, and they all have to cooperate to make the final product. In short; this is what every human being on the planet knows about game development.
Let me put things in perspective. You essentially want to hang around the offices of a major player in the industry for a month and absorb information, while bringing no relevant skills to show for your own. You're not even in college yet. You're in high school. It is widely known and accepted that people in high school don't know shit about shit.
If the company I work for (not game development, but research and engineering all the same) were to assign somebody to spend any more time than the odd lunch break showing basic things to some random outside person, all of our projects would fall flat and we'd be suffering major missed deadlines. Taking key resources off a project, even for a short amount of time, wastes an immense amount of time and money. Taking key resources off a project, to show a high school student what little he can comprehend within his current knowledge base, for a complete month, without getting jack shit in return, would be complete lunacy and probably not worth whatever money the high school would be willing to pay for the services. Unless they can pay full hourly consultant rates as expected by the industry. Since you're still in high school, you're at least one college degree and perhaps 3-5 years of formal work experience away from being a potential hiring target for anything besides delivering coffee and swiping floors anyway.
You're much better off focusing on the skills you will need to pursue a career in game development, maybe with a sprinkling of a 1-2 day visit to a development house if you can pull it off. You'll learn all you can learn in 1 day anyway, after that you'll just be a prop. Believing otherwise is just deceiving yourself. Start studying programming and maths if you want to do actual game development some day. The only way to become a good programmer is to program, and program a lot, so starting early is a good idea.

Stonebro: All of this is very true. While I don't exactly agree that if you haven't experienced game development, you don't have any real idea of how it works, that honestly is not the point.
I do appreciate your advice. Something that you need to realize is that this project would take place almost a year from now, things change, and I'm sure my idea will change too. I could decide to try to take a tour of a game development studio for a day or two as part of the experience, then delve deeper into a topic with my own study. Nothing is set in stone.
Just another little side note, I am actually trying to teach myself to program. At the moment I am studying HTML and JAVASCRIPT/AJAX. While HTML and Javascript are not game related, I have been told by that family friend of mine that they are good introductions. After I get a firm grasp on those concepts I hope to try to learn C++. And as far as math goes, I'll be taking sophomore college level courses my senior year of highschool.
Denyasis: Yes, the program is very rewarding. It is one of the main reasons the tuition is so high, and also why I love the school so much.
There will likely not be too many new developments to this actually happening until at least the end of the summer. Once it gets closer to the time my proposal for the Immersion is due, I'll tell you all how it turns out.

For the love of all that's holly in the world of programming, DO NOT START WITH HTML AND JAVASCRIPT*! I'd even make that text larger than life so that it will be noticed. Start with something that is well documented, that doesn't have many kinks and issues and non-standard application of multiple basic programming ideas. DO NOT! Bad! Bad!
Start with Java or even better, start with C#. C# is great to learn: there are a lot of good resources available for training and most of them for FREE (docs, MS Visual Studio, etc.), it teaches object-oriented programming very well and the concepts you'll learn can be easily ported to other programing languages. Also, the .NET platform is great to work under.
Java is also good but has some issues and the documentation that is available is lacking at times, especially on the beginner areas. Interfaces suck ass to do in Java and also the IDE's are less elegant than VS. Either way, chose one of these two and stick with it.
As for math, you'll see that you'll need hell of a lot more than sophomore level, especially if you want to apply programing for gaming. Depending on the circumstances you'll also need a hell of a lot of physics.
Also, DO NOT START WITH HTML AND JAVASCRIPT IF YOU WANT TO LEARN PROGRAMING!
You're better off even learning a scripting language like perl or python because they can get you a job doing QA from where you can move up into a proper programming group.
In the end, DO NOT START WITH HTML AND JAVASCRIPT IF YOU WANT TO LEARN PROGRAMING!
* AJAX = Asynchronous Javascript and XML and despite what people shout and scream about Web 2.0 it isn't a new concept by far.
Oh, yeah, DO NOT START WITH HTML AND JAVASCRIPT IF YOU WANT TO LEARN PROGRAMING!

Hmm...well I'm afraid it is too late for the HTML aspect...
Anyway, I have been told many times before C# is a very hard language to learn for the first time. Also, I am simply saying I will have plenty of math throughout my time until after college. I am not worried that I will be undereducated in that aspect.

I think that negates the hippie label. :P