Disney internship inspires grad student
At NDSU, you’ll have the opportunity to pursue various internship opportunities with top companies across the country. For Shima Goodarzi, a graduate student pursuing her master’s degree in landscape architecture, that dream internship was with Walt Disney Imagineering.
This past summer Goodarzi worked in a team on one of the Walt Disney Imagineering projects in California to create a new Avatar destination that will be added to California Adventure Park.
Reflecting on her time spent at Walt Disney, Goodarzi summed up her internship experience as “mind-blowing.”
“Working on Disney projects was really like a dream come true for me,” Goodarzi said. “When I applied for the position, I was very excited, and just the idea of being an Imagineer, even for a short time, made me feel so happy. I think Disney projects and their theme parks are very different from working on any other projects.”
Throughout her internship, Goodarzi worked closely with professional designers, architects and engineers, which helped her learn more about how vital a collaborative environment is for communication, flexibility and respect for work across disciplines.
“Seeing how ideas were refined through teamwork showed me that the most successful projects come from listening, sharing and building on each other’s strengths,” she said.
Other skills Goodarzi strengthened through the internship were technical and creative skills. She become more confident using design software, 3D modeling and communicating design ideas through diagrams and presentations.
“Just as importantly, I developed problem-solving skills by adapting to fast-paced project changes and learned how to balance creativity with technical feasibility in a real-world design environment,” Goodarzi said.
One of Goodarzi’s favorite experiences of the internship was an open house event, which allowed her to visit various parts of Walt Disney Imagineering, including Animation and Show Systems, Research and Development, Concept Lab, Ride Engineering, Architecture, Design and Engineering.
Now back at NDSU, Goodarzi said the internship experience has opened her eyes to the various career paths one can take with a landscape architecture degree.
“This internship was really a valuable experience and helped me understand how work on large projects is coordinated between different teams. Seeing how designers and engineers work, the attention to detail and the creativity at every stage gave me ideas on how I can shape my own future career,” Goodarzi said, “It also gave me a chance to explore different areas in landscape architecture and design and helped me see which paths are more interesting for me.”
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