Here you can find out all the official information you need to know in a timely and effective manner. Well, OK maybe not always in a timely manner but you can usually eventually find out what you have to know to get you through the next 24 hours.
The World Showcase Fellowship Program (WSFP) is different things to different people. One one hand it is a group of 60 - 80 young people recruited by Walt Disney World from around the globe to represent the international spirit of Epcot and to give World Showcase credibility as a multi-cultural experience. On the other hand the program is a year long commitment from this group of people to leave home and live in a different country. For the Walt Disney Company the Fellowship program is a group of exceptionally bright and promising young people to present to its guests and the community. For the participants, the Fellowship program can be a life changing experience full of highs and lows for these people who have dedicated a year of their lives to coming to the USA, living in an international community, and accepting a group of strangers as their new family.
OK, I guess that sounds a little bit dramatic, but it is pretty much true. In this section, you can find the official Disney information on the Fellowship program and following it, what it actually meant to me.
Please note: The information given here reflects the 1997/1998 WSFP only. The official information is only given to compare with personal experiences. It is not intended to be an all-encompassing statement of what the program will always be. Year to year there are many changes in the program involving work rotations, seminars, and virtually every aspect of the program. Basically, it's all subject to change. Nothing in the WSFP is set in stone and the key word for my year (and the following year and probably every other year too) was to be FLEXIBLE.
This exciting 12 month program brings together
authentic representatives of the 11 World Showcase nations for an
in-depth cultural exchange involving five elements: Working,
Learning, Living, Recreation, and Travel.
To find out more about Walt Disney World International Programs, you can write to International Recruiting. If you're interested in working in Epcot send along a resume too.
Walt Disney World Co.
International Recruiting
P.O. Box 10,090
Lake Buena Vista, FL
USA 32830-0090
You can also call the casting hotline for some recorded information at (407)-828-1000.
I guess it's hard to put into words what this program was for me. Before I went it was just a chance to work at Walt Disney World, to go to the parks whenever I wanted, and to be a part of the "magic" that I had always experienced as a guest at the Disney theme parks. Those things in themselves were a dream of mine for a long time and when I received the call to come down to Florida I was thrilled. But along with that happiness, there was a lot of fear and apprehension. Would I fit in with all these seemingly eternally happy, smiley people? Would the work be all right? Could I survive without a car and making the smallest hourly wage that I had since I was 15 years old? The flight down was full of tension but then I arrived in Florida, to be welcomed by some of the Fellowship already there and a loud group of Canadians.
Now that I've been there and come home, the Fellowship program has come to mean a few more things to me. Primarily, it was the chance to meet and become friends with a great group of people from many different countries around the world that I never would have met, had I not been there. I now have much more interest in traveling abroad and seeing the countries and cultures I encountered in Florida first hand. The program gave me the chance to learn about working in a very large organization and the positive and negative elements of the size of the Walt Disney Company. It also gave me a chance to finally get backstage at Walt Disney World, to see how some of the attractions work, and to put on a few different costumes, including the Guest Relations plaid.
Basically, the World Showcase Fellowship Program has opened my eyes to more of what's out in the real world. It's not just what's in Vancouver or just what's in Canada. There's a global community out there (sorry for using a catch phrase like that) and I feel more a part of it now. I guess this doesn't really give you a good picture of what the program really was to me so I'll try to sum it up here. To me, it was a great series of experiences, memories, and friends. It was wonderful, awful, hot, sweaty, exhausting, fun, boring, busy, and slow-paced all at once. It was many things, positive and negative, but overwhelmingly more good than bad.
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