Disney internships offered through Ambrose

March 24, 2005
By Katie Kerr
Staff Writer

Ireland, London, Spain; forget them. Walt Disney is the new place to study for a semester away.  The program is called the Walt Disney World College Internship.  Once students are accepted they travel to Walt Disney World for a whole semester and become interns for one of the four Disney amusement parks. 

Amy Runde was a part of the Disney experience this past semester.

“It was an amazing experience and an opportunity that I'm glad that I took advantage of,” she said.  “I met a lot of different people from all over and it really opened my eyes to a lot of things because I was exposed to things that I had never experienced before.”

Runde was among the 4,000 students from the United States accepted into the program.  Her stay began on Aug. 13, when she checked into one of the three apartment complexes offered for the college program members.  Apartments were offered for groups of two, four, six and eight, and transportation was also available with all the different busses and shuttles.

The jobs are assigned before a student’s arrival and vary from lifeguards, to food and beverage cart operators.  Runde worked at the All Star Music resort in the music section where her job varied from day to day. She either worked behind the register, at the island grill, or helped out at the beverage area. 

Her roommates, who hailed from Boston, Texas, and North Carolina, worked as a lifeguard at a water park, at the pirates of Caribbean, and at MGM studios.

Although Runde would love to have worked at one of the theme parks on a ride or attraction she still really enjoyed her job at a local resort.

“One positive thing about working at the resort was that I was able to see the same people everyday and I was able to get to know them,” Runde said.  “If I had worked at a theme park, it would have been new people every day and I wouldn’t have gotten to know the people as well as I did.”

Natalie Sacco is the St. Ambrose representative for the Walt Disney program and wishes everyone could have the same experience she had.

Sacco worked at the Magic Kingdom and had no trouble keeping herself busy after work.

“If our work schedules permitted, we loved to go to the parks during whatever time we weren’t working,” she said.  “Part of the program is free admission into the four Disney theme parks.”

For more information on the Walt Disney experience, a presentation will be held on April 7, at 5:00 p.m. in the Gottlieb Lounge in the Rogalski Center.  Some preparations are needed before the presentation.

Instead of conducting the interviews that night, as they have done in the past, the interviews will be held over the phone in the week after the presentation.  Students will be able to find out if they were accepted a week to two weeks after the interview.  An internship file will need to be started and a resume put on file.

“Students should go online and fill out the application to bring with them to the presentation,” Sacco said. “The presentation is a time to hear more about the program and to ask questions.”

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