What's it like to intern for Mickey Mouse? Mount student is featured.

Mount St. Mary's senior interns at the happiest place on Earth
By Courtney Pomeroy - Frederick News-Post

While most Mount St. Mary's University seniors were racking up credit hours, reading thick textbooks and taking exams last semester, 22-year-old Megan Ritchey's life was more like a walk in the park. Literally.

Ritchey, a communications major, was in Florida working as an intern at Disney World since late August. She was accepted to the intern program there last spring after completing an online application and a phone interview.

"I thought it was great because I love Disney World," she said. "As a kid, I always wanted to get married at the castle."

She had been to the park twice before last summer -- once with her family when she was in eighth grade and again during her high school's senior trip.

Ritchey's main duty during her internship was helping with the Magic Kingdom's famed Main Street parades, which feature the larger-than-life characters from Disney films that populate the park.

A normal workday included attending a meeting before the evening parade, helping control and interact with the audience gathered near the route and "just make it a great experience for them," she said.

After attending a small college, working at a park that thousands of people visit every day was quite a change, Ritchey said.

"When I applied to the Mount I loved how tiny it was," she said. "I was very nervous about going to a whole new place and meeting a whole different group of people. ... But now, every single day when I walk outside, I meet someone new."

She has also befriended her roommates, who hail from Texas, Georgia and New York.

"Now I have, like, thousands of friends from all over the world," she said. "Just the wide range of people that you meet, it's unbelievable."

After Ritchey graduates this spring, she hopes to go back to Disney World to work there permanently.

"I've been struggling the last couple of weeks because I'm going to miss Disney," she said. "But I'm very excited to celebrate my last couple of months as a college student at the Mount."

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Check out other opportunities for internships at the Mount's Career Center