The Kitchen Sink!

One of the huge things on my bucket list for the DCP was to eat the kitchen sink. Well, ladies and gentlemen, I'm happy to say that I can cross that off my list! All of the CPs in my work location met up one night last week and headed over to the Beach Club to share some ice cream and hang out outside of Nemo!

The kitchen sink is a specialty at Beaches & Cream Soda Shop which is a small restaurant located in the Beach Club Resort. It's one scoop of all of their ice cream flavors, every single topping they have, and a whole can of whipped cream served in a bowl shaped just like a kitchen sink! They have sirens and lights that go off when they deliver it to your table and they make a big deal about the fact that you are attempting the kitchen sink!

Of course, my coworkers and I just ordered two kitchen sinks and split them among ourselves. They say that it serves 4 people, but we had a hard time finishing them with 6 people per sink! It's A LOT of ice cream! Nevertheless, we all had a great time and it was so nice to bond with my coworkers outside of the theater!

Here it is, in all its glory

The Nemo CPs after the Kitchen Sink!

Environmentality & Sustainability - Week 7

To say that today's class was the most interesting two hours I ever spent in a classroom would be a major understatement.

The topic: Animal Care
The speaker: Joseph, the Zoological Manager at Disney's Animal Kingdom Lodge
The result: a blissful Megan

I absolutely loved everything about today's class. Joseph gave the class a brief overview of animal care and enrichment at Disney, told us about a typical day in the life of an animal keeper, gave us inside information on how the animals are taken care of and trained at the Lodge, told us about what makes the Lodge unique from Animal Kingdom, and even gave advice for people who were hoping to break into the zoological field!

I learned a ton of useful information today. For example, I learned that training is not only used for medical care, but animals can also be trained so that they can get exercise, keep their mind stimulated, or to get rid of a behavioral problem. We also learned about some problematic animals at the Lodge, such as one gazelle who likes human contact a little too much, which often puts her in dangerous situations! Joseph told us about how he got into the company, how he worked for a variety of different zoos and wildlife centers, and the tasks he does on a daily basis. He talked about how keepers do a lot of cleaning, but how they also have other really cool responsibilities at the Lodge, such as giving private safaris of the four different savannas, and having dinner at one of the signature dining restaurants with Guests. They also get to observe animal behavior, design enrichment activities for the animals, have guest interaction to share conservation messages, and work on training the animals.

The one important thing I took away from today's class is that I finally realized that animal keeping and training is really what I want to do with my life. It's always been something that I thought I wanted, but after hearing Joseph describe his day in the life and learning more about the kinds of things keepers do, it made me realize that I definitely want a career doing this in the future.

However, that's not even the coolest thing that happened during class today! I went up to introduce myself to Joseph and ask him a couple of questions after class, and I told him that I was applying for an internship with a zoo for next semester, and he asked me to sit down with him so that he could prep me for the interview! How amazing is that?!?! I got to sit down with a zoological manager at Disney World and he shared with me the types of common questions you get asked, the important things to mention, and told me how to make my personality stand out through the interview. I was amazed that he took the time to sit down with me and actually help me develop my future! It just goes to show how small and amazing a company Disney is, and how Cast Members truly do look out for one another.

I'm so thankful for all of the opportunities I've had through taking this environmentality & sustainability course at Disney. I can't even imagine doing half of the activities I've done or meeting half the people if I hadn't been enrolled in this course. For those of you considering taking classes at Disney, I HIGHLY recommend it!!!

Meet & Greet with Jeff - Environmentality Teacher

This morning I had a meeting with Jeff, my teacher for my Environmentality & Sustainability class. I met Jeff at his office in Vista Way and we talked for about thirty minutes about the rest of my time here in Orlando and how to effectively network with my remaining time. Jeff was extremely helpful, especially because I really didn't know what direction to head in in terms of networking. Jeff suggested that the next two weeks in class would be very beneficial to me and that I should take the opportunity to introduce myself to our guest speakers and let them know that I am interested in their work and ask them questions. He explained that the speakers are there on their own time, and that the speakers like having questions asked, because then they don't feel like they wasted their time to come speak with us.

Jeff also gave me some helpful hints about when to use business cards and hand out resumes, and what kinds of things I can do now to help me apply for professional internships in the future. Because I am not planning on applying for a professional internship in the next few semesters, I felt like I didn't know how to best network to help myself in a year or two, but Jeff explained to me that staying in touch with a simple email is a great and effective way to continue networking into the future.

I now feel like I have a little more direction in my networking experiences, and I have some plans to get in contact with other people in order to help myself move forward with the Walt Disney Company.

For those of you thinking about doing the DCP or just for anyone interested, meet & greets are extremely effective ways to network and make connections with the company, and I highly recommend starting sooner rather than later!

Program Update #1

A lot has happened since my last post, so I wanted to make a general program update to let you know about all of the cool things that have been going on during my DCP.

First, I finally got to see the new Festival of Fantasy parade at the Magic Kingdom! It was amazing! It's great to see some of the new characters making their first parade debuts, and the floats are truly spectacular. The amount of detail on each one is enough to make your head spin! Here are some pictures from the parade.

The parks are definitely getting more crowded since it's spring break season, and with the crowds of course come a lot of changes at work. Almost every day we make a slight modification to the loading process at Nemo, which keeps things interesting! After all, Walt did say "We keep moving forward, opening up new doors and doing new things, because we're curious... and curiosity keeps leading us down new paths."

My friends and I have been planning a lot of fun days and activities, with the most recent being the Miley Cyrus Bangerz tour in Orlando! Five of us bought tickets to the concert in the Amway Center in Downtown Orlando. It was seriously so crazy (as expected with Miley) but a ton of fun and a great way to spend time together. 

In the middle of all of this fun, we've also had other issues to worry about, like passing the second round of inspections! We all cleaned for a couple of days leading up to inspections, and this time around we got inspected on the second day of inspections! I was in the apartment when they inspected us, so I got more of an idea as to what they did. Honestly, it was so quick. There were three people that came in, looked all over our apartment, and then told us if we needed to improve in any areas or if we were doing a good job. We passed with flying colors and got our 2nd White Glove Award! I'd say we are doing pretty well with inspections, well that, or the other apartments in the complex are just really dirty and gross...

Anyway, I have a lot planned in the next few days. I have a Meet & Greet tomorrow with my teacher to talk about how I should approach the rest of my program, an advising meeting with my Clemson advisor for next year on Thursday, my last two classes of environmentality and sustainability, and even some fun play time at the parks and resorts. Be sure to stay tuned for my posts in the next few weeks!

I hope everyone is having a magical day, and remember to keep on dreaming!

Environmentality & Sustainability - Week 6

This week was another field trip week in Environmentality & Sustainability, and this time we went to The Seas in Epcot! Yes, I know, I'm a lucky girl who got to get a backstage tour of The Seas two weeks in a row... (if you haven't read my Meet & Greet at The Seas post yet, be sure to check it out!) Anyway, this week was a lot of fun. My group was given a private tour of The Seas by one of the education team's professional interns, Zack. He was really great and gave us a lot of information about the aquarium, the animals, and the care and maintenance of such a large system. I learned that all of the marine mammals at The Seas are males (4 dolphins, 2 manatees), that the water is constantly being filtered, and that it is the second largest aquarium in the world (behind the Georgia Aquarium in Atlanta).

It was really cool to once again get a backstage tour of The Seas and learn about the kind of work and research that is going on there. I also had a great time talking to Zack about his role as a professional intern, and asking him questions that would help me best prepare to get a PI at Disney in the next few years. All of these classes are great networking opportunities, and it's not lost on me how much of an amazing experience this truly is. I know that not many people get to go backstage at The Seas, and far fewer people have as many opportunities as I have had to learn and see first how truly how much Disney cares about the environment and conservation.

I honestly could have cried being there, I wanted so badly to jump into the tank and put on my scuba gear to get in the aquarium. It was an amazing experience, and I am so looking forward to my last few classes of Environmentality & Sustainability!

By the way, if you're wondering why I haven't been taking pictures of all of my amazing backstage experiences, it's because Disney has a strict no backstage pictures policy, so I'm sorry guys, but you will just have to take my word for how cool it truly is!