An awesome part of the Disney College Program is the fact that they host so many classes, seminars, and series. These programs are designed to help current CP's learn more about the company, learn about the company's values, learn about a career with Disney, and learn about future opportunities. Yesterday, I had the opportunity to attend the first session of the Professional Internship Insight Series. In this session, about 80 college program members met with Professional Internship recruiters to learn the ins and outs of applying, obtaining, and keeping a Disney Professional Internship.
To start, I will explain what a Professional Internship is. A PI is an internship with Disney that is designed to give college students and recent graduates the opportunity to gain real world experience within their field of study in the Walt Disney Company. Disney offers hundreds of PIs in fields such as marketing, communications, entertainment, human resources, animal programs, and many, many more. Since I am a Conservation Biology major, I am extremely interested in their Animal Programs internships.
To start off the night, the panel of recruiters hosted a FAQ session. They went through a series of frequently asked questions about the application, interview, and hiring process. This was really helpful because I learned that it can literally take a manner of seconds for them to eliminate you as a candidate for a position. I also learned what kinds of things need to be on my resume to make it stand out, and I learned about the interview process for internships.
After the FAQ session, we broke down into smaller groups so that we could do individual networking with the recruiters who recruited for our positions. I talked to Ernesto, who recruited for a variety of positions including HR, Entertainment, and Animal Programs. The networking session was cool because it was the first opportunity I had to talk with someone in that field, however the session was also a little stressful. The one thing I will say about Disney is that once you are in, they want you to stay in the company. The entire night made me feel as though they didn't care how long it took me to complete my degree, which is something that is extremely important to me. Regardless, the whole session was interesting and helpful and I'm glad that I attended.
As a side note, these sessions are something I intend to take complete advantage of. Tomorrow morning I am attending a session on Resume Writing and I am planning on going to several more as the weeks go on. The information made available in these sessions is invaluable to my career and my future!
If you have any specific questions about what was covered in the seminar, please feel free to leave your question in the comments below, or get in contact with me! I would love to give you any more details about the session and the information I received.
What gave you the impression that they didn't care how long it took you to complete your degree? I wasn't able to attend, so I'm very curious! Thank you!
ReplyDeleteHi Emily! Just from the panel discussion, they all recommended applying for a professional internship before you graduate, which at least to me, seems a little far-fetched seeing as everyone here has already taken off at least one semester to do the College Program!
DeleteAlso, when I spoke specifically to the recruiters, they talked about me applying for one internship now, and then one after that (basically to do some of the higher level internships in animal programs, you need to have done a previous animal program internship to even be considered). That's three semesters, which is a ton of school to miss, especially if you're someone like me, who is still planning on trying to graduate in 4 years!
The other side of that is that once you're in the company, Disney values your work ethic and wants to see you succeed, so they want you applying for internships, extending, going part-time, etc. So there's an upside and a downside to it!