working/internships in orlando and abroad

[madgoose]

hey everyone,

i'm 6 months into my patisserie and baking program at OCA and it's about this far into it they keep telling us to think about our externships which for the pastry program is only 2 months. originally i wanted to do my externship in the UK because eventually i would like to live and work there, but when i asked career services they didn't seem very keen to help me out going overseas it seems like they'd rather you stay in orlando without directly saying so. So to make a long story short i would probably do my externship here and try to stay on to gain experience, my 2 part question is if anyone has done an externship in orlando and has feedback about any of the places here?

second question is if any student out there has made the transition from the US to abroad and how they did so? ie. gaining employment, sponsorship, the visa process, working environments ect.

thanks,
jen

[ALynch]

Ive heard wonderful things about the Walt Disney World College Program. I almost went into it myself but changed my mind at the last minute for personal reasons (a girl). You can research it here at www.wdwcollegeprogram.com The recruiter that came to my school in Miami was Chef Pauli Millete. If you do interview with them you will want to do your homework about the Disney company. They might ask you to name all seven dwarfs in additional to extensive technical questions about pastry.

If you still want to go to UK, Marriott is a good company they do internships at most of their larger full service proprties all over the world. I did a 3 month internship with them in Chicago and had a wonderful experience.
http://marriott.com/careers/CollegeInternships.mi

Good luck

[madgoose]

thanks for your advice it helps because the jw world mariott here was one of the choices i was considering for the internship.

see disney seems a bit like a double edged sword, it looks great on a resume and it probably seems like a good idea to work there but several of the chefs i had and one especially is adamant that it's the evil corporation and not to work there so that kind of put doubts on that but i do know the seven dwarfs just in case

i'll have to look into the mariott further thanks again