It’s recruitment time for the happiest place on Earth.
But some students are saying The Walt Disney World College Program isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.
“I had a good time, but it definitely was not an internship,” said Kim Lambert, a University of Memphis graduate who interned with Disney in 1999. “I learned nothing, worked for cheap and took off a whole semester to do it.”
Last night, Disney hosted an informational meeting in the Faulkner Lounge of the University Center about their college internship program.
The program’s Web site claims to give participants a combination of education and work experience. However, some participants say the program doesn’t quite live up to the bill.
Lambert signed up for the program’s business classes and wound up working retail at MGM studios. She said she learned nothing from the classes and was surprised that they were even considered business classes at all.
“It was just hours of fluff,” Lambert said. “There was absolutely no business aspect. I learned more in one day at The U of M than I did in five months at Disney.”
The fact that interns are promised an opportunity for college credit is misleading, according to Lambert.
“Before I left, The U of M assured me I would be able to get college credit for the internship,” she said. “But when I returned they told me that because the classes weren’t related to my major, I couldn’t get credit, not even as electives.”
According to Lambert, the program was also extremely disorganized.
“The managers where interns worked had no idea about the program,” she said. “They just thought of us as another set of students to do cheap labor, and that’s really what we were.”
Lambert said she was only paid minimum wage and that rent for the apartment that Disney provided was automatically taken out of her paycheck.
“I remember my first paycheck was actually a nickel,” Lambert said. “I paid $77 a week to live in a run-down, old apartment with three other girls.”
Another Disney intern, who wishes to remain anonymous, said he was barely paid enough to survive.
“I worked 40 hours a week and after rent and taxes were taken out of my paycheck, I was usually left with about $60 to live on,” he said.
This intern, who is still employed seasonally, signed papers saying if he spoke badly about Disney, he would be fired.
“Secrecy is a very big deal with Disney,” he said. “They don’t want anybody saying anything.”
Perhaps this is why so many students are disappointed with their experience.
“The program is very vague on the front end,” he said. “If students were told what jobs they would actually be doing, nobody would want to go.”
For example, he said students sign up to work in food, but they are not told that they’ll be standing all day in the middle of the park, in the hot sun with a cart.
The program’s Web site makes several claims about what interns will learn from Disney.
One claim is that interns will “build transferable skills that include relationship building, problem solving, plus written and verbal communication.”
Lambert said the program did nothing of the sort.
“The only thing that I pulled away from the program is being able to better interact with people of different backgrounds,” she said.
The anonymous source, however, believed that the opportunity to build these skills was presented through his jobs—park greeter, parade control and guest relationships.
“There was a lot of hands-on experience,” he said. “I had to be able to make spur of the moment decisions to solve problems.”
The Web site also claims that interns will “explore networking opportunities” at the Walt Disney World Resort.
Lambert said this was also misleading.
“Any opportunity you had to network, you had to find on your own,” she said. “And I didn’t have the time after working 40 hours in a week.”
On the the other hand, the anonymous source said that he did gain good connections from the program.
“Nothing was handed to you,” he said. “I met a lot of people through the program, but it was all because I took the initiative.”
Both interns agreed that the program was a lot of fun though.
“Overall, it was a good experience,” said the anonymous source. “I had a good time partying.”
Lambert added, “It was definitely fun, but it was in no way a serious internship.”
