My Great Internship Adventure

[rjholla2003]

If you need a bit of Great Adventure reading to do, read a reflective article I wrote about my experience this summer as an intern at the park.  Enjoy!

Also, if you have an idea for an article of your own, feel free to submit it to us.  In the user block on the left-hand side of the page there is a link you can use to submit an article.  If we feel that it fits well with the site, we may post it.  Happy writing!

[peterpjr]

Great Article.  It sounds like you really gained a lot of valuable experience.  You and your team did a great job this season keeping the park clean.  I was impressed each time I went the cleanliness of the entire park. 

[OrlandoRocks]

Someone should post a link to this article on the front page.

It was interesting on how you related the position you were in, into future careers opportunities. I always thought that park services was the toughest job at Gadv since the majority of the guest disrespect the park and they think they can do what ever they feel like once they paid the price of admission. Thanks for sharing your experience with us.

Iv'e seen the parking lot once the park closes and it looks like landfill 

[ChuckR]

Awesome article RJ! Glad you had a blast working at the park!

[DianaR]

Excellent article RJ! I am really glad that the internship worked out so well for you

[coastermom]

Hey RJ that was really intresting to read as my daughter is looking into a high school program for travel and tourism . They too have this type of internship. I am hopeful she will get into this program as she really enjoys travel especially when it comes to amusement parks!! Do you enjoy the program ?

[rjholla2003]

I love the program.  Changing my major to Leisure Industries and Tourism brought be back from the academic dead.  It's a great program and even if you don't go into the Mega Industry, you will still have some sort of experience of knowledge that will help you out almost anywhere.  You pick up a little of everything when your business contains a little of everything.  A lot of the operations in the field contain elements of several whole businesses or industries in one.  It's pretty insane when you think of it.

From what I understand, I honestly applied for the perfect school for me.  I came to Montclair State as a History major with the intent of teaching.  Montclair State started as a teacher's college and now has one of the most state of the art Center of Pedagogy (and new building)   After two semesters of that, I was finding myself very uninspired.  I was walking around campus in the middle of the night with my friends because we were bored and somehow ended up in the student center.  I then saw a flyer with a roller coaster on it, so I had to stop.  I glanced at it, saw the words, "Do you want to work for...Six Flags...Cedar Fair...Disney...Paramount Parks", snatched down the flyer, and called the head of the department, Dr. Jack Samuels. (I forgot what it was called at the time since the program's changed names twice, lol).  After that, became a Commercial Recreation and Tourism major.  The semester afterwards, due to an overhaul of the program, I became a Recreation Professional with a concentration in Commercial Recreation and Tourism.  After that, we FINALLY (Dr. Jack Samuels fought about 15 years for this) were moved into the School of Business here at Montclair State.  My major's name stayed the same, but we got the "Leisure and Tourism" name, and now we can say that we graduated from an accredited business school as well.

Furthermore, Montclair State happens to be one of the few, if not only, schools to have this type of program.  Other places usually only have Hospitality, which is really bad for something other than restaurants and hotels.  Also, we are one of the only schools that has been with the Walt Disney World College Program since it's inception 26 years ago.  They love Montclair students at Disney, so we have a great opportunity to actually go down there if we so choose.  It's also very easy to recieve your credits for interning there since it's built into our school.

Coastermom, it's great that your daughter will get to experience this mega industry earlier on.  I hope that they teach it well and give her a good feel for what it's really like.  I can't say that I'd personally would have taken the opportunity myself since I wasn't heading in that direction yet, but I sure would have liked to at least have thought about it.  I wish her good luck.

[coastermom]

I think this will be her first choice for high school. I just hope she gets picked for the program. There are only so many seats.  I do know that it looks good especially going into that at any college that has it. Thanks for the info.