“I was supposed to be at Disney World from January to May 2020. But I was having so much fun as a PhotoPass photographer, I applied for an extension to August, and I got it.

“In our morning briefings in January, they reminded us about flu season, and to make sure we washed our hands, used hand sanitizer, that type of thing. Mid-February, the briefings started talking about this thing called COVID. They asked us to help limit contact between guests, limit photos we were taking, and wipe down our equipment often. Beginning of March, they really upped the precautions.

“Then around March 12, we learned Disney World was closing for 2-3 weeks. We thought we were going to just stay in our apartments, then head back to the parks when they opened again. About two days later, we got an email saying that due to COVID-19 and all the unknowns, they were ending our program early and sending us back home. We had to be out of our apartments in 72 hours.

“We still had one full day of the parks being open, and I had a shift that day. Because it was such a shock and everything ended so abruptly, Disney cast members and management really made our last day memorable.

“One of my managers asked if there was an area or character I’d like to work with. I said that I’d love to shoot with Mickey and Minnie, even if just for one family. She put me with them for three hours. It was unbelievable. They even cleared out the area to give me one last goodbye with Mickey and Minnie, and I got some hugs and pictures with them.

“After clocking out for the final time, they again went above and beyond. They asked if there was anything on our bucket list, like rides or shows we hadn’t seen, and they made it happen. Cast members showered us with love and appreciation. We had so much fun. And as sad of an ending as it was, it was something I’ll never forget because of the kindness of so many people who poured out their hearts to us.

“Then we went back to our apartments and packed it up. About 24 hours later, I was on the road, heading back to Texas.”

— Kenzie Lackey

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• Disney internship adventure begins

• ‘It’s tough right now, but this is only temporary’

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“I planned on going to law school. But by my senior year at Texas A&M, I decided it wasn’t going to be a good fit for me. I thought, this is not what I want to do with my life anymore.

“I majored in agricultural communications and journalism. So when I graduated, I moved back home and started looking for jobs in the Houston area. I had a few bites, but nothing I was super interested in.

“Then spur of the moment I was like, you know what, I have always wanted to work at Disney. It’s been a dream of mine. There’s just something about Disney that brings so much joy to people. Whenever I talk to someone about Disney World, Disneyland or the Disney company in general, they usually have this big smile on their face. They’re thinking back to a time when they were in the parks, or a fond memory of their family watching a Disney movie. I wanted to be part of that magic. I wanted to be part of the joy that Disney brings to people every day.

“I decided to apply for the Disney College Program. It’s a paid internship program through Walt Disney World in Florida and Disneyland in California. You can work in almost any area of the parks, essentially from custodial to attractions. You have the opportunity to live on Disney property in apartments with other students.

“It’s a big program, but it’s pretty difficult to get in because a lot of people want to work for Disney. I had a really good experience with my application and interview. When I got my email, I was sitting on the couch at home thinking, if it’s a no, then that’s OK. There will be something else out there for me. When I opened the email and it was a yes, I cried tears of joy. I was so excited. I was offered a position as PhotoPass photographer, taking pictures of people all day having fun at Disney World. It was more of a dream come true than I could have ever imagined.

“I immediately called my mom at work and said, ‘You’ll never guess. I’m moving to Florida. I’m going to work at Disney World.’”

— Kenzie Lackey

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• COVID-19 brings abrupt end to internship

• ‘It’s tough right now, but this is only temporary’

The post Disney internship adventure begins appeared first on The Baytown Project.

“One of my friends got into an argument on social media. She texted me and said, ‘These two people are harassing me on Facebook. Can you please help?’ So I kind of intervened. But I very quickly came to the realization that no matter what I said, they were going to dig in their heels and believe what they were going to believe.

“Sadly, I kind of feel that way about a lot of social media arguments. It’s so much easier to refuse to listen to other people or try to understand another perspective when you’re hiding behind a screen on your computer or phone. At the end of the day, you might not agree with each other. But people are much more willing to say nasty, awful things online because they don’t have to look someone in the eye while they’re doing it. And that’s pretty unfortunate.

“As a debater, you don’t get to do that. There is a standard of professionalism and a standard of decorum.

“When I started, I was easily persuaded in a lot of things. I would believe stuff that I saw on the internet without researching further. I would kind of fall victim to that mob mentality. If all these people had an opinion on a certain thing and all these news sites were saying this certain thing, I would take it at face value. Debate has really taught me that I can’t do that. I have to do my own research and be well informed in all areas. And I have to understand things better in order to discover myself as a person.

“I think I’m much more grounded now and well rounded as a result of having to listen to other people’s perspectives.”

— Pamela Johnson

Pamela began debating at Barbers Hill High School. She was a top performer on Lee College’s debate team the past two years. For the fifth time in seven years, LC earned the title of national community college champions in the International Public Debate Association.

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“I have a job offer with a digital marketing company. But it’s kind of up in the air right now. I’m just waiting patiently to see where this pandemic leads us.

“The plan was for me to attend a boot camp in Denver with all the other entry-level analysts to get the foundational knowledge we’ll need to start working. They let me know the only thing that could keep me from being able to start with them in August is if Denver is still in a shelter-in-place. So I’m doing a lot of hoping and praying that the pandemic kind of eases up on us and gives us all a break.

“When all this started happening, I was fearful for sure. I thought, I’ve worked so hard to get this college education and this job, I don’t want to have to go through the process again of possibly finding a job.

“But then I got on LinkedIn, and I saw all these other 2020 graduates saying how they’ve been affected and how they’re just going to do what they can to make their lives work. There are thousands of other graduates going through the same thing as me. And there are thousands of employers who understand what’s happening to the class of 2020.

“So I just thought, you know, the worst thing that can happen is I have to move back home and move in with my parents until I can get on my feet. A lot of graduates are having to do that because their job offer was rescinded or they don’t have anything lined up, and they can’t afford to continue where they’re living.

“I’m hopeful that everything will work out. It always does. If my job does get rescinded, I will do everything I can to stay where I’m at and find another job. But if not, I’ll be able to move home and spend some quality time with my parents, who I haven’t lived with in seven years.

“So I’m just taking things day by day, and realizing that the worst thing that could happen is not even that bad at all. It’s not the end of the world. For me, it’s very comforting to take that approach.”

— Emily Brown

After her freshman year at Brigham Young University, Emily took four semesters off to serve a religious mission in Mexico. She just graduated with a bachelor’s degree in geography: global studies and a minor in statistics. While waiting to start her new job, she continues working as center director at Mathnasium in Provo, Utah.

The post Coronavirus may impact first post-college job appeared first on The Baytown Project.

“I kind of have this thing — I’ve been calling it a superhero complex — where I want to help people.

“At one point, I thought about becoming a police officer. When I was 15, I wanted to be a vigilante. I had a mask. I had police scanner codes in my closet. I was ready to go out there and stop the drug lords. I was just this teenager who weighed 130 pounds. I didn’t have any martial arts training or anything. Needless to say, it didn’t happen. My friends found the mask. They give me hell about it whenever they can. It’s literally just an orange ski mask that I cut out eye holes and drew on with a Sharpie. 

“I thought about trying to join the CIA. But they’re like a recruiting thing. I don’t think I have the aptitude for it anyway.

“There’s this political science professor at (Texas) A&M who was in the CIA. He’s a decommissioned operative. He and his wife were this tandem couple. He was telling us about how he got recruited. He got a phone call, and they said to meet them at this location. He went there, and then they took him away to this place called The Farm. It’s where they train people. They taught him Spanish, French, Italian — like six different languages. Then, bada bing, bada boom. It just kind of happened. That would have been in the 60s or 70s. So it’s probably even more intense than that now. 

“At 21, I’m still very idealistic. I’ve got these grandiose ideas of what I want to do for the world. I just don’t quite know how to go about it.”

— Troy Breaux-Hare

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“Originally, I was an electrical engineering major. But I realized I didn’t like it, so I decided to change to something I actually enjoy. And I like video games. Not just as entertainment, but as an actual art form. So I’m majoring in game design.

“It’s a two-year program that should, once I finish, allow me to work in the industry. Then, maybe if I get a four-year degree, I can rise up in the ranks. This program seems to mostly focus on the development part, like modeling characters and programming. What I hope to work my way up to is designing the overall way games are built, the more ethereal part of it.”

Any ideas for games you’d like to develop?
“Oh, yeah. Too many. One idea is for a series called Tales Gone Arhye, with Arhye being the name of the setting it takes place in. It would be a fantasy series, with each game being a self-contained story. It’s meant to be an homage to different forms of fantasy. The first game would be sword and sorcery, like Conan the Barbarian, Elric of Melniboné, stuff like that. The second game would be epic fantasy, like Lord of the Rings, the Wheel of Time, and so on and so forth. Just kind of chronicle different time periods in that setting.

“I’ve put a lot of thought into how each culture in the setting would work, and how the characters would interact with one another. Right now, it’s mostly all in my head. The hard part is putting pen to paper. One day.”

— Daniel Western

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“I’ve always had this interest in animals. You name it, I’ve probably had it: geese, turtles, chickens, dogs, fish, rats, hamsters … I’ve had it all. I’m really interested in wildlife, too. I love fishing and stuff like that. So I guess it makes sense that I chose to study biology. I haven’t decided specifically what I want to do yet. But I would like to work with marine life and also terrestrial animals.

“I guess I’m leaning toward becoming a veterinarian, and just see where that takes me. I realize I have a lot of schooling ahead of me. But you know what? In life, you sometimes have to go through a lot of things to get to where you want to be.

“My biggest challenge is probably trying to accomplish so much at one time. Right now, I’m working two jobs. I work at a grocery store and I coach a young dance team called the Prancing Starlets. I’m a full-time student. And during the summer, I’m taking extra classes.

“I have a very tight schedule. I come to school at 8. I leave around 1. I go to work at 2. I get off around 7. And I coach until 9. Then I go home and do all my homework. Depending on how I feel, I might stay up until 1 or 2 in the morning.

“It’s a lot. But on Thursdays and Fridays, I have time to rest. So that’s when I build up all my energy. Then I just do it all over again.”

— Jaya Leblanc

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“I’m currently majoring in general studies, but I’m planning to go into aerospace engineering and management. Aerospace is planes and space, and I’m interested in both.

“I dream about one day mass producing planes that can serve as personal vehicles. I’d like to see if that could be a viable thing. The goal, really, is to just make transportation better overall.

“I’m sure it would be controversial. But it’s all about political will at some point. You never know when people will move. You never know when everyone will all of a sudden agree to do something.

“There are a million things we could do, but we’re not doing them because not enough people are agreeing on it. But sometimes there are these points in history, sort of like golden ages, when everyone is like, hey, let’s actually implement these things. And they go on to become part of our technology.

“Looking back, sometimes it’s just circumstances. It’s when the need strikes. And sometimes it’s just because of one person. Think about Thomas Edison, and the thousands of inventions he had. He was this one person who inspired everyone to do certain things.

“I have this admiration for heroic people like that. They don’t come along very often. But when they do, they can make such a great impact on the world.”

— Linus Jingco

The post He has some grand transportation dreams appeared first on The Baytown Project.

“We recently had a conference here on campus called the Voto Latino Power Summit. Some of the speakers told us that while we’re making an impact in the community, there definitely are things we still need to work on. For example, I’ve heard some people say that while they’re registered to vote, their polls are too far away and they don’t have any way to get there. So some of my members and I were thinking about coordinating drives to the polls. That’s something I would like to see us do for the upcoming election because it’s going to be very important.

“I voted in the last presidential election. At that time, I was still living in Baytown, and my polling place was just a few minutes away from my house. But for many people, like the elderly and those with health issues, getting to the polls is a challenge. Voting is especially important now, when it’s our community that seems to be heavily affected by policies that certain politicians are pushing. So I always tell people that I vote for those who can’t.”

— Cynthia Pizana

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The post She’s working on getting people to the polls appeared first on The Baytown Project.

“I’m hoping to patent a device for the bottling industry that would help reduce the plastics that we use, while also allowing products to stay fresh and safe longer. I’m still in the research and design process. But one day I hope to have it patented, start my own business and get my stuff all over the world. I’ve always had a passion for creating, wanting to make things better. I’m one of those people who sees something and thinks, how can I make this better?

“I chose to study business — and I hope to get into international business — because I want to travel and I love meeting people who are different from me. I love cultures in general. I’ve been trying to teach myself Spanish and Mandarin Chinese. I have a friend who’s been helping me with Spanish. But the Mandarin thing is all me. Mandarin Chinese is one of the more prominent languages used in the business world. So if I ever want to work for an international company, I feel like that’s going to be a major help. It could open up some doors for me. I’ve been teaching myself through online courses. I’m still not very good at it, but it’s coming along.”

— Michaela Jones

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