Students trade Aubie for Mickey

A few Auburn students are trading in Aubie for a giant, talking mouse with the Disney College Program.

The program brings college students to Walt Disney World in Orlando, Florida, or Disneyland in Anaheim, California, for a paid internship that lasts the span of a semester.

Students are brought from colleges all over the country and abroad to work various jobs that range from manning the rides and attractions to merchandise to food service to performing in parades and shows.

When the students aren’t working, they can take one or more of the different classes Disney offers, which are not accepted for credit at Auburn, or take advantage of free admission and parking at any of Disney’s parks.

But before getting to spend days off riding roller coasters and eating Mickey Mouse-shaped ice cream bars, students must make it through the application process which, according to Taylor Sivley, sophomore in music education who will be moving down to Orlando as a program participant in August, can be daunting.

Sivley said applicants must go through different levels of interviews, a questionnaire, an online interview and a phone interview before being selected to participate in the program. 

“What I’ve heard from someone who was in the program a couple years ago is that they took 20 percent of their applicants, and so at first, that made me really nervous … And I actually had applied before and not gotten as far as the phone interview,” Sivley said.

And once a student has been accepted, it is not all play and no work.

Savannah Smith, senior in mechanical engineering, who is currently in the middle of her semester in the Disney College Program, said some nights she is working, manning the outdoor food stations such as the popcorn or cotton candy stands until 4 a.m.

Bailey Kamm, sophomore in industrial and systems engineering who is also part of the Disney College Program, said the long hour she works as a driver for one of Animal Kingdom’s main attractions, the Kilimanjaro Safari, combined with all the fun things to do after work, has made for a level of constant exhaustion she was not prepared for.

“You go to work for 10 hours … and then you get home and your roommates are like ‘Oh my gosh. We are going to Hollywood Studios to watch fireworks. It’s going to be so much fun,’ and here you are, dragging in the door, haven’t even had dinner yet … you are constantly pushing yourself to go out and that’s an amazing thing but you … have to push through being exhausted,” Kamm said.

And on top of work and having a social life, both Kamm and Smith are taking classes while in Disney as well.

Kamm is taking online courses not offered through Disney, as well as an engineering class through Disney.

Smith is also taking one of Disney’s engineering classes, which she said has been a great opportunity to see Disney and mechanical engineering in a new light.

“The last class we had two of the Imagineers take us around Epcot and show us all of the different things around there, and that was probably one of the coolest things because … their like the head honchos, the best of the best,” Smith said. “That was just like really, really cool and made me realize that could be me one day.”

Kamm said that these classes offer a chance to network with the engineers who come in each week, which, while scary, can help get a foot in the door down the road.

But, as a longtime Disney fan, Kamm’s favorite thing about the program is being able to soak up life in the famously coined "Most Magical Place on Earth."

“There are so many amazing things, but the one thing I have yet to wrap my head around is just casually sitting there and being like, ‘Hey, you want to go to Magic Kingdom’ …When you are here as a guest you are paying for it so you are … rushing to do everything, but when you are here all the time, you can really enjoy the atmosphere and just like sit in front of the castle and just enjoy your day,” Kamm said. “It is a whole different experience, and it truly is magical.”