Welcome back to our blog, and thank you for following along on this journey with us. It's hard to believe that two weeks have already come and gone, and yet, here we are, with one more incredible week still ahead. But before we get ahead of ourselves, we still have a full day to tell you about. Shall we get into how it all began?
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Hooray!! Today is the day we have all been waiting for. We finally get to show off our work to Disney professionals. Although everyone stayed up pretty late last night, adding our finishing touches to our presentations, we woke up early this morning to run one last practice presentation before heading to a Disney office. We left the hotel with excitement and also nervousness since we were presenting in front of people who have been working for many years in this industry. That being said, we were ready. Behind us were countless hours of research, slide revisions, practice sessions, and, perhaps most importantly, the unwavering support of our professors who believed in us every step of the way. Whatever the outcome, every group showed up that day having given their absolute best. And to us, that was all we needed.
When we got to the office, we were very lucky to see lots of Disney employees. These people were so kind to spend their days with us to teach us more about the company and, of course, listen and ask questions on the projects we’ve been working on for the past two weeks. We were able to hear from people working in various fields such as computer science, operations research, data science, industrial engineering, and even an Imagineer! Although we were nervous to present to such esteemed people, everyone was so kind, and every group did amazing!! The Disney cast members had a lot of great things to say and were impressed with our knowledge and presentation skills. They came ready to ask questions, but lucky for us, we knew this information like the back of our hands, so it was nothing we couldn’t handle. Even though it might have been the first time for some of us presenting in front of experts in this field, we all successfully gave wonderful presentations.
Then, after a full day of learning and presenting in the Disney office, the cast members had a nice game for us. Of course, given the people we are, this turned into a serious competition. We each had 90 seconds to draw a picture of Kermit the Frog from memory. Let’s just say… It’s a good thing we’re math majors instead of art majors.
After saying goodbye to the Disney hosts, our professors complimented us on our presentation, telling us they were really proud of what we had accomplished. For that moment, it felt like everything had paid off. Just 24 hours ago, we spent time in the lobby of our hotel to make sure our presentation looked good. Now, all the hard work was over for now, and we could celebrate. Our professors took us to Panera Bread for dinner. After a long day at the Disney office, we were all hungry, so it was time for us to recharge our energy before heading to Magic Kingdom. The professors kindly decided that we deserved a night in the park with no data collections or projects, and to just celebrate the hard work we had done. Even though the weather wasn’t its best, we persevered and threw our ponchos on to still have a great time!!
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| The rain can't stop us from having fun! |
During the night, a couple of the members in our cohort had their big break on the Monsters Inc Laugh Floor comedy show. In the middle of the show, the camera panned to Cassie, and she was handed a microphone. She knew what she had to do; she hyped up Furman, our class, and, of course, MATH. We got a round of applause for Furman, and Cassie soaked in her two minutes of fame.
After a couple of hours in the Magic Kingdom, and what felt like the longest day of our lives, we were EXHAUSTED and ready to get to bed!! Rumor has it, they’re letting us sleep in tomorrow :)!!
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| Mara, Cassie, and Connor are really exhausted! |
Today’s blog was written by Dylan Daniels and Tram Le.
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