And so the journey begins!

Hi everyone!! My name is Lory and I am officially going to be in the WDWCP for Fall 2011!! I received this wonderful email last week Feb.1st and I'm super stoked! So for this first blog I decided that I'm just going to go through the interview process through the eyes of a Culinary major!

First off a little about me!

Name: Lorraine

Nickname: Lory

Arrival Date: Sept.6th (but as soon as I get my schedule for summer I'm going to see if I can go earlier)

Age During the Program: I'll be 20 when I start but will turn 21 not too long after (Oct.22)

Major: Culinary Management and Hospitality Management

The Interview

For my initial phone interview (Jan.26) I was asked some of the standard questions that everybody gets but the majority of the questions revolved around food. Here is a list of some of the questions I got as well as a few that my friend got:

• Why do you want to work for Disney?
• What would you do if you had a messy roommate?
• What is your work experience?
• When are you available to come down?
• What does HACCP stand for and what does it mean to you?
• What is the Temperature danger zone?
• What does being a chef mean to you?
• What vegetables are in season?
• What order should chicken, beef, ground meat, and fish go in the fridge?
• What dinner and dessert would you make for friends or family?
• Name 4 green vegetables.
• What should the cooked temperature of beef, ground meat, chicken, and fish be?
• What 2 cuts make up prime rib?
• Build me a salad.

There were a few more that I can't remember off the top of my head but that is pretty much what the initial interview consisted of! After asking me all of the questions Tammy, my interviewer, told me that I would hear from the chef within 2 weeks. And so my wait began... Or so I thought.. The following day, January 27th, as I was getting ready to watch Greys Anatomy, I received a phone call from Orlando area code. I immediately got nervous and it took me a couple seconds before I finally picked up my phone lol. Sure enough it was Chef Pauli, the hiring chef of the WDWCP, he asked me if he caught me at a bad time and I told him no but really I was totally freaking out haha.. So he proceeded to ask me some more questions, all culinary based. Here are the ones I can actually remember:

• Does your school have a dining area that you cook and serve for?
• If I gave you a mystery box and in it was scallops, what would you make?
• If you could choose 2 proteins what would they be and how would you make them?
• I just made a fresh chicken stock and I bring it to you to use, what 2 things would you make with it?
• We just roasted a chicken, what sauce will you make for it?
• We just made a veal chop, what sauce will you make for it?
• You are put on a buffet line, choose a protein, tell me how you would make it and how your station would be set up, remember we don't use chafing dishes.
• What was the last dish you made for family and friends?
• What would you consider to be the perfect burger?
• What do tarragon, parsley, and fennel taste and smell like?
• Build me your best salad.

Those are really the big ones that I can remember.. If I think of any more I will definitely add them! After That interview he told me it would be 3-4 weeks until I hear back. Every time I would see a new email I would get so excited/nervous to see who it was from. And then on February 1st, 5 days after my interview with Chef Pauli, I was seeing that other people got accepted and for the most part it took 8 or so days so I knew not to expect anything. I had my phone sitting next to me but I knew nothing would come in so I stopped looking at it every 5 mins. Then when I did look at my phone I saw that I had a new email and I was like there is no way that it can be Disney, I clicked to open my email and there it was Disney Recruiting: Disney College Program Your Invitation!! I was sooo Excited and couldn't believe that it only took 5 days! 

Now it's the waiting game until I get down there 208 days till I get to go to Disney! Sorry for this first blog being so long lol. I was just trying to cram everything up until now into it! For you all still waiting Good Luck, your time will come!! And for those of you who have been accepted CONGRATS!! I can't wait to see you down there! 

"Around here, however, we don’t look backwards for very long. We keep moving forward, opening up new doors and doing new things… and curiosity keeps leading us down new paths.” - Walt Disney