A Disney Dream

Tonight after my technical communications lecture, I attended a presentation by Disney in one of the Engineering lecture theatres. I didn’t actually know what to expect beforehand but the “Disney” title was really what grabbed my interest. There was quite a big turnout for the presentation and before long, we were introduced to the presenter for the night, Jennifer Mattson. She told us that she was a recruiter for an international student exchange program they run at Walt Disney World in Florida. The program she was advertising was 6-12 month term work experience opportunity for current tertiary students in Australia and New Zealand.

She started the presentation by giving us an overview of Disney’s history and showed us an interesting video that included the many facets of the Disney brand. She then started to talk specifically about the Australia/New Zealand work experience program and what it involved. Basically it is a program set up to give international students an opportunity to travel to America to work at Walt Disney World in Orlando with up to 7000 other international students. The type of work we would be taking part in would range from such roles as operations, merchandise, quick service food and beverage and lifeguards.

In addition to the valuable skills gained through the day-to-day responsibilities of their job, participants will have the opportunity to learn skills from Disney leaders, participate in special Cast Member learning activities and networking events, take advantage of our Disney Learning Centers and add work experience with one of the most admired companies in the world to their C.V.

It seemed like a really good opportunity considering the only costs involved were a few admin fees and flights to get there and back. While the students are there, they would be living at Disney and working at Disney to pay their way over there. About $80USD would be taken from their wages each week to pay for accommodation, including amenities such as internet access and gym. The presenter played several videos throughout the presentation showing interviews with past students who participated in the program and it looked really exciting.

At the end of the presentation, Jennifer was going to take interviews with anyone who was interested in participating next year, but obviously I knew I wouldn’t be able to go next year. I went down to the front of the lecture theatre and spoke with Jennifer and she said that it would be possible for me to do the exchange program up to one year after I graduated. It all happened so fast but after I left the presentation I had a sudden epiphany about the number of opportunities there are in the world. It’s really up to me to decide what I want to do in future and this might be a way to launch a career I hadn’t thought about previously.

If you want to read more about this program, you can to to the Disney International Program website or alternatively (if you have time) you can watch the full presentation that I sat through online by watching the E-Presentation here (it’s approximately 1 hour but it includes all the videos I watched etc.)