My Disney Career (part 2) - The Disney College Program

What did you do for your internship? I was a Wildberry Poptart!

Oh, the life of a Walt Disney World College Program girlie... I was lucky enough to be housed at Patterson Court, which was one of the apartment complexes reserved solely for DCP participants and it was the newest of the complexes. It was pretty quiet and I only had one roommate despite our apartment being set up for four, which was fantastic. (She even left the program early so I had a whole bedroom to myself!) 

I was able to keep my financial aid at my school - the University of Minnesota - because I took online classes through them and I took two classes that Disney offered. I even got my "Mouseters Degree" at the end of the DCP classes. 

The Entertainment Show Production was my absolute favorite because we got to go backstage and see how so many of the shows were run! The Fantasmic day was by far my favorite as it was one of the best shows on property and I wanted to see how they did all of the stunts and the GIANT dragon animatronic. (I highly recommend you YouTube the show if you've not seen it. It's done nightly at Hollywood Studios and it's such a huge production that's so nostalgic and fun!)

But back to the *real* reason Disney's even got a college program: the work. At the time, we were cheap labor since we could be classified as interns so I was making a whopping $7.25 an hour to work 50+ hour weeks during peak times but I was lucky as I was not out in the elements like so many others are. DisneyQuest had some pretty cool indoor attractions like a virtual roller coaster that you created with Bill Nye the Science Guy and then got into a simulator that ACTUALLY spun you around and flipped and made so many people sick who didn't realize that it was real. There was the Pirates of the Caribbean ride which was a crowd favorite. (I once put Joey Fatone and his family on this after he refused to skip the line even though the had the pass to. He was so nice and humble and thanked all of us.) 

There are SO many videos online of what the WDW's Disney Quest looked like and some of the rides and things since they decided to tear it down a few years back to build a crummy ole restaurant. (Boooo! Hiss!!) 

Seeing as my internship was in the Fall, I was SO excited to attend the Epcot Food & Wine Festival as well as Mickey's Not-So-Scary Halloween Party! The night I went... I decided to go as a Mad Hattress and... oh gosh, please don't laugh too hard at the picture of my costume I'm about to show you... 

Kacie trying so poorly to copy a pose from the Halloween Costume's packaging

ANYWAYS... I got to go trick-or-treating at Magic Kingdom and met so many fun characters in my silly little costume (the shoes didn't make it too long. wtf was I thinking wearing HEELS???) I met my queen, Maleficent, and she told me I had good taste when I told her she was my fave. I always loved going to the events and parties because you got to experience the parks in a whole new way with a lot less people. Halloween has always been my favorite holiday and the Haunted Mansion has always been my favorite Disney attraction, so getting to spend a night in the park while it had all turned into a giant  Halloween party with rare characters and endless trick-or-treating was honestly, a dream come true!

As much as I can say I would not want to work for the company today, I wouldn't trade the memories I made nor the experiences I has as an intern for the world. Sure, the hours were long and the conditions were... not great, but I did make some lifelong friends and learned a heck of a lot about myself during those 5 months. I'm so lucky that I had family who got to visit me during the holidays while I was there and they still talk about it today. 

There was a lot of "typical college kid" party stuff happening but I was older than the majority of the others who were interning and that didn't appeal to me. I remember hearing about a couple of the local bars and clubs who didn't check ID's and there were a lot of people who ended up getting kicked out of the program after getting caught there. As much as it makes me want to roll my eyes when I say this, I was planning for what I thought at the time was my dream career. I didn't want to mess anything up so I picked up extra shifts, spent lots of time talking to management and researching the company to prepare for the future. 

I have a million more pictures I need to figure out how to share, but for now, I'll leave you with little Miss Kacie getting her "degrees" from Mickey and Minnie right before I headed back to Minnesota in the middle of January! 

My Disney career did not stop here, however! I was determined to work for the company like I'd told my family I would when I was a child, so I didn't let moving from sunny Florida back to snowy Minnesota stop me! 

In part 3, I'll share all about my time at the Mall of America's Disney Store and how truly life-changing that time was for me. Stay tuned!