A few Important Questions about DCP

[TuneTownMagic]

Hi There!! Its so nice to get some advice from a community of veteran college program people. I am considering doing the program, but have a few vital questions that I feel will help guide me to my decisions.

1. How many courses can a person take when being part of the college program?

2. I've often heard that the pay is quite low, and with the cost of housing and food, at the end of one's experience there is usually little to nothing leftover from wages earned. I'm curious about people's experience with this aspect.

3. With the long hours that are sometimes given (from what I've heard), would it be feasible to take other online correspondence courses through my community college while also working for the DCP and taking courses at Disney? Is that even allowed?


Thank you so much!

 

[Wishes Count]

Hi There!! Its so nice to get some advice from a community of veteran college program people. I am considering doing the program, but have a few vital questions that I feel will help guide me to my decisions.

1. How many courses can a person take when being part of the college program?

2. I've often heard that the pay is quite low, and with the cost of housing and food, at the end of one's experience there is usually little to nothing leftover from wages earned. I'm curious about people's experience with this aspect.

3. With the long hours that are sometimes given (from what I've heard), would it be feasible to take other online correspondence courses through my community college while also working for the DCP and taking courses at Disney? Is that even allowed?


Thank you so much!

Hi

1. You can take two Disney courses at once. If you do an advantage program you can take two during the first term and two during the second. Some are ACE certified, after your program you can pay to get your transcripts sent to your school for transfer. I didn't do this because I more took the classes for fun and to gain experience. I also did not know if it would be worth it to pay the money for the transcript or how my university would count them. I took Human Resource Management, Creativity and Innovation and a Disney Exploration Series on Guest Service.

2. I about broke even on both of my programs. I also spent a lot of money going out to eat, ordering takeout, buying tons of souvenirs at the parks. I did not budget at all and spent whenever I felt like it. You will not get rich doing this program so don't expect to come home with several thousand dollars, you are doing it for the experience really.

3. It is possible and I know some people do it. I wouldn't recommend doing more than two classes if you choose. Also they need to be the type of class that doesn't have a meeting time, like you don't need to be online at a certain time. Your schedule will vary and during peak seasons you maybe working over 60 hours in one week. My roommate took two online courses and struggled with them, but she didn't manage or plan her time very well. It will be difficult but can be done.

 

[TuneTownMagic]

1. You can take two Disney courses at once. If you do an advantage program you can take two during the first term and two during the second. Some are ACE certified, after your program you can pay to get your transcripts sent to your school for transfer. I didn't do this because I more took the classes for fun and to gain experience. I also did not know if it would be worth it to pay the money for the transcript or how my university would count them. I took Human Resource Management, Creativity and Innovation and a Disney Exploration Series on Guest Service.

2. I about broke even on both of my programs. I also spent a lot of money going out to eat, ordering takeout, buying tons of souvenirs at the parks. I did not budget at all and spent whenever I felt like it. You will not get rich doing this program so don't expect to come home with several thousand dollars, you are doing it for the experience really.

3. It is possible and I know some people do it. I wouldn't recommend doing more than two classes if you choose. Also they need to be the type of class that doesn't have a meeting time, like you don't need to be online at a certain time. Your schedule will vary and during peak seasons you maybe working over 60 hours in one week. My roommate took two online courses and struggled with them, but she didn't manage or plan her time very well. It will be difficult but can be done.

Thank you Wishes Count ! I appreciate all your advice. That's a good point about online classes meeting at particular times. I will have to look into that if I decide to pursue that route. Do you know if weekends are usually off for college program cast members? Thanks again.

 

[Hollsey]

I second what Wishes Count says

But I'll also add my personal experience with budgeting. Disney was my first job, so I pretty much went down there with whatever loan money I had leftover (which got spent pretty quickly once I bought food). I had friends who were really, really good about saving money, and depending on where you work it is possible. I set up an automatic transfer of $50 from my checking to savings every week on my bank's website and that helped me a lot when it came to November/December when I was spending a lot of money. It *is* possible to save but depending on the person it might take a bit of extra effort. I didn't really budget and I worked at a location where I could actually buy the food we were serving to Guests so I could eat it on my break, and because I was lazy that ate up a lot of my money. A lot of my friends who had cars ended up taking the bus quite often to save money, too. It just depends on your own habits of a spender, I think. My boyfriend that I had down there was in the culinary program and went home with a decent amount because he worked more hours and was paid more. Another friend thought she was underpaid so she picked up shifts all over the place and still took the bus.

And in terms of off days, it varies with everybody. 95% of my program I had Wednesdays and Thursdays off. At the same location, some of my friends had regular "weekends" and some had different ones each week. If you take CP classes, the days that you have the classes will always be your off days. (So if you have class on Monday, you'll always have Monday off, unless it's peak season and you don't have class anyway.) Another friend consistently had Fridays/Saturdays off, and I've heard of people having Saturday/Sunday as their weekend, but it's not guaranteed.

I probably way over-answered your question, haha. Hopefully that helps though!

 

[Andtototoo]

My dd was in the CP last year and is back again this year. Last year she worked in Attractions in MK and she often worked incredibly heavy schedules, especially during spring break weeks.

She took two online classes through her college. Neither of those classes had set meeting times -- she was able to watch a lecture, etc whenever she wanted and I know sometimes she was watching them at 4am after coming home from extra hours at the MK and being too wound up to go to sleep. I think two classes was quite enough given the hours she was assigned to work. Especially given that the spring break period at WDW also encompassed her college's mid-terms. Yikes. That was NOT a good time. She had to ask one of her professors for an extension because she simply did not have the time to work on her school work given her assigned work hours. (And no, they were not going to give you time off during spring break weeks to do your college assignments.) This year she's only taking one online class. She also took one Disney class -- which met once a week for 3 hours.

One of her roommates took 4 online classes and her previously stellar GPA took a steep nosedive. She was simply not able to do the work necessary because of the number of hours she had to work (and she had many less hours per week than my dd).

My dd confessed to us that she did spend more money than she made. I'd attribute that to going out to eat a LOT with her friends and buying food at work instead of bringing it from home. She socialized with friends from MK who were all getting off work at midnight or later and since they didn't want to wake up their roommates, they'd go out to restaurants that were open late in order to socialize. That meant spending money. She also bought an annual pass to Universal (which I actually think was a good buy because she went there frequently and if you amortize the cost over the number of visits, the price was actually quite cheap per visit). Also initially -- when the CP discount is 40% at the beginning -- she bought a lot of stuff. I doubt she'll do that this time.

I think one of her roommates broke even, but she wasn't very social and cooked almost all of her own meals. I'd note that one reason she was not very social was because she was the one taking the four classes. She simply did not have time to socialize. I think that was a shame.

Another roommate dipped heavily into her savings which was a combination of spending a lot of money to go to various beaches and buying alcohol along with calling in sick and therefore not making money. (She was termed, btw.)

Another roommate called home for $ every week. She also admitted to spending between $50--$150 per week on alcohol. She said she would have broken even if she had not drunk away her paycheck but in her view, she'd come to the CP solely to have an extended spring break so that was what the money was for.

My dd's days off stabilized for a while and always included the day she had her Disney class. That class ended before spring break. Then during spring break time the days off were completely random from her pov and they never stabilized again after that. She never knew what day(s) off she might get from week to week.

The pay rate depends upon the job category. As I recall, QFS and Custodial make the least. The best paid CP position is Photopass Photographer, followed by Attractions.

 

[LauraLynn]

About 6-7 years ago I worked at Disney Full Time (I'm hoping to return this Fall as a CP), I was 19 at the time.

As they said above, don't expect to save thousands. You can pick up extra hours easily, and during peak times it's easy to pick up overtime. I asked a recruiter and they said CP's do get overtime which is time and a half. Your pay varies depending on your role there. Food and Beverage usually get better pay.

IMO I say be smart, but have fun. Manage your money, but don't go off on a spending spree either. I'll have 2 main bills to worry about, my cell phone and food (that is after the rent is taken out.) If I control how much I eat out, I shouldn't be bad off. I have heard the first month is the hardest. You'll wait anywhere from 1-2 weeks before your first check. So I suggest bring a few hundred to survive off of and have most of your supplies that you'll need.