Parks With Programs For College Students

I saw on the Cedar Point website that they had a program for college students where you work there for the summer and you stay in dormitories there and I was wondering what other parks offer anything like this.

SFGAm offers an internship program which includes dormitory style housing.

Click here.

Scroll down to Seasonal jobs and look for internships.

Most major parks offer housing for seasonal employees such as college students. In some cases it's on-site (like Cedar Point) and in other cases it's not (like SFGAm).

-Nate *** Edited 5/16/2004 7:09:48 AM UTC by coasterdude318***

Dollywood has a college program and offers housing. The housing is in Knoxville at UT.

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Most folks aren't aware of this, but Morey's Piers in NJ hires over 800 international students each season and has several boarding houses that they own and operate.

Thanks for the info., but more specifically, does Universal Orlando offer anything like this?

Andrew, I belive that Universal Orlando does have a college program, along with Disney. The thing is, they are basically slave labor, and there is little to no actual training, or experice to your actual college program.

What exactly do you mean by slave labor.

I mean that they put you in some of the worst positions, barely pay you (I think disney is like 6.25 per hour), give you no to little chance at advancement, they charge a lot for housing (I know for sure that the first week working at Disney you will actualy owe the company), then they work you a whole bunch of hours. While to me this sounds bad, there have been many who have left the disney program loving there time working for the company, and are very happy they did it. Vist www.jimhillmedia.com and read some of the "castmember corner" features, writen by people who have gone through the disney program. Universal I belive is just about the same way, but I'm not exactly sure.

One more thing, disney does offer co-ops and internships, but once accepted into those positions, you must be in the college program for a certian length of time before starting in those positions. *** Edited 5/17/2004 2:37:15 AM UTC by Mark Burleson***

Alright then, I think it is camp counselor for me for the summer during college.

Check out the following links for internships at Disney and Universal.

-Nate *** Edited 5/17/2004 5:21:46 AM UTC by coasterdude318***

For some reason I have found...

Those who take Disney internships absolutely love them and have a million cool stories about them even though they get no real world experience, pay worth crap and put you in horrid positions. I knew a person that did one of these and constantly talked about how great Disney was, even though he was just a waiter there for a year, and made nothing doing it. The only thing that seemed attractive to me was the fact he could enter the parks before and after the GP did each day and just hang out. That would be really fun to me.

Those that have taken the other internships either love them or hate them, depending on what they are getting into. The other ones tend to shove you into high level positions and expect that you can function immediately, which is very stressful for some people but you can learn a lot from them.

If you're planning on doing one, good luck choosing! They both offer their positive and negatives.