Product Development Intern Review

I loved my Creative and Product Development Internship at The Walt Disney Company! The work was varied and allowed you to input into multiple parts of the development process. You also had the opportunity to work on project both individually and in a team. The team ensured that the work environment was always enjoyable.

All of my managers and members of my team were always apprishiative of the work I did and the effort that I put into our projects. Every member of the creative team would go out of their way to ensure that you felt like a valued member of the team.

During my internship, I worked under a couple of different managers. All of the management team were extremely supportive and the structure of the internship helped to ensure that you were always given guidance when needed. Managers are approachable and always willing to help you to either develop your design skills or to guide you through a project you may be completing individually.

You are given what feels like a lot of responsibility when you begin the job! The role is flexible and as you develop within the role you can take on more responsibilities. If you completed your day to day product Development work, you were able to ask for additional projects to work on to help you develop your skills and give you more experience within the industry.

I felt like I was given the perfect amount of responsibility during the internship. I did not feel overwhelmed, but I was able to manage a number of my own licensees who I aided through the product development process and spoke to on a daily basis. I was responsible to ensuring that these licensees met their time frames and developed products to our standards.

I believe some of the most important skills that I learnt whilst on placement were professional skills. For example, how to work emails and speak to licensees. I also learnt how to manage my time and multiple projects using spreadsheets. I also developed product development skills and gained industry knowledge that will help me in the future.

The office was so fun, as expected from a company like Disney! The atmosphere was relaxed (but hardworking!) and all members of the team got on really well. During the summer, we would all finish early on a Friday to have drinks together. There is also a large community of interns at the office too.

Disney have been running the internships for a number of years and therefore they are very well organised. There is a clear structure to them which helps you to develop all of the necessary skills that you need for your final year at university. You also have one to one weekly meeting with your manager and mine was constantly asking if I was happy with everything and if I could think of any improvements or projects I would like to get involved with.

I believe this depends on the team and managers that you are working with. In my case, the managers really wanted you to do well, both during the internship but they also wanted to ensure that I was prepared for my final year. Managers took time out to help me word emails, develop product ideas and also use adobe programmes correctly.

There is no graduate scheme at the company and they do not guarentee you a job when you leave university. However, I would love to return back to Disney and continue to learn about the toy and product development industry. If you do return to the company, there are opportunities to work within different catagories such as fashion, outdoor toys and homewear.

Disney had over 200 interns in the building and encouraged you to meet each other through putting you all in a Facebook group before you arrived at the company. This allowed you to talk to people and form friendships before moving to London. There was a large social scene and interns even organised events such as a winter ball and netball tournaments.

London is a very expensive place to live. Accomodation was expensive, espeshially in comparison to other internships that were located out of city centres. Going out was also expensive. However, you could find a lot of free or cheap places to go in London during the day! I would not let the expensive side of living in London put you off, it’s worth the money!

It was more pubs than clubs

Yes but you have to look for them! For example I joined the Disney netball team but it’s not well advertised.