“All our dreams can come true if we have the
courage to pursue them” -Walt Disney
If you told me a year ago
that I would be working for the Walt Disney World Company on a 6 month
internship I would probably have laughed in your face because I didn’t think
that that would be possible. I mean its Disney for crying out loud! But here I
am, a year later, wishing that my college program wasn’t ending in 6 weeks.
Back in January, my Zeta
twin was telling me about her two experiences doing the Disney College Program
and how life changing it was. After hearing her go on and on for what seemed
like hours, I decided to apply just for the heck of it and figured I wouldn’t actually
be accepted. Little did I know that less than two hours later I would get
through the first round and then be accepted into the program. I was completely
shocked and really didn’t know how to react. I was super excited but at the
same time, this would be the first time that I was truly away from home (and be
moving half way across the country!).
Flash
forward to August. I had to say good-bye to my best friends and to my family. It
was hard but they were all really supportive of me and were excited for me to
experience everything ahead. Moving to not only a brand new city but also a
brand new state was a huge adjustment for me. The first couple of months were
really rough. I wasn’t really friends with any one from work and I felt like somewhat
of an outsider. But luckily my roommates were great and we all get along really
well which helped so much because we are all kind of in the same boat of being
away from family through the holidays and stuff like that. It sounds cliché but
these girls are some of my best friends and I literally couldn’t imagine doing
my college program without them. Within the past month I’ve gotten really close
with some other cast members from work and it breaks my heart that in a short 6
weeks I’m packing up my car and going home to possibly never see them again
(which I hope isn’t true because they’re some of the best people I’ve ever met).
In
the short amount of time that I have lived here in Orlando, it truly has
started to feel like home. One of the most heart-warming things you can do is
make an adult almost cry from joy or make a child laugh so hard they almost
fall over. I get to do this every day at my job and it is the most humbling
thing. One of the most special memories I have made here was with a little three-year-old
girl. At my work place in Disney we have plastic snakes that look like they’re
alive when you move them a certain way. This little girl came up to me freaking
out because she thought it was a real snake. She was scared to touch the snake
but I told her that I believed in her and that she was brave enough to do it. After
a couple of minutes she finally got the nerve to touch the snake and she was so
excited. She started jumping around and singing that she was brave enough to touch
a real snake. It was the cutest thing I’ve ever seen. I will cherish that moment
for the rest of my life and I know that that little girl will as well.
My
time here at Disney hasn’t nearly been long enough but the amount of memories I
have made here are enough to last a lifetime. I will be forever grateful that I
took the chance that one night in January and applied.
Tayler Ringberg, PC Fall ‘14
