So what are you going to do now that you’ve completed another year at Iowa State?

“I’m going to Disney World!”

That’s exactly what Sue Eivins, a senior double majoring in agronomy and horticulture said. Only she didn’t go there to relax, she went to learn.

Eivins will soon complete an internship at The Land, which represents agriculture in Future World at Epcot, in the Walt Disney World Resort. The internship, which began in late December, has been a “six month vacation” according to Eivins.

Eivins knew she wanted to work at a resort, so when she saw an ad in the Daily about internships available at Disney World, she jumped at the opportunity.

“After hearing this whole long schpeel about hotel and restaurant management,” Eivins said, “they said ‘and by the way, we have an agriculture program.'”

That was all Eivins needed to hear. She signed up for an interview, submitted her resume, and was off to Florida after being accepted.

“My parents were only worried about me driving down,” Eivins recalled. “They just knew how determined I was to get here, but they didn’t like me driving by myself.”

Eivins had visited Disney World in the past and had wanted more than anything to visit the greenhouse tour. Unfortunately, it was booked solid. Now, she would be guiding the tour.

“When I found out I got the internship, I thought, not only am I going to get to see the greenhouse tour, I’m going to be giving it,”she said.

At The Land, guests discover creative, environmentally sound approaches to food production, integrated pest management and computer-controlled agriculture among other things.

Interns though, find what “it’s a small world” really means. “The college program that I’m involved in lasts six months and we all live and work together,” Eivins said of her five roommates.

“We live in tourist world,” she said, “but we do things to get out of it like go camping.”

But tourists are a highlight of Eivins’ job. Part of her duties include giving hour long walking tours through the greenhouse. “They [tourists] ask a lot of questions,” Eivins said. “It’s very interactive.”

And, sometimes, it’s just plain active. “I had a group once from Japan making a video trying to sell people on the idea of coming to Disney World,” Eivins explained. “They didn’t speak any English and I had no idea what they were saying. So, I just smiled and ran around pointing at leaves, pointing to peppers. I was happy, but I had no idea what to do.”

When it comes to crops and crop growing, that’s when Eivins knows what to do. She said she works with the crops in the greenhouse on a day-to-day basis, working to make them look “unreal.” “People ask if they are wax,” she said.

Eivins hopes to use the experience she has gained the past six months to get a job in extension or crop development when she graduates this spring. But for now, the vacation continues.

“My internship ends this Sunday,” Eivins said. “Then, on my way back to Iowa, I’m going to travel up the east coast and camp in the Shenandoah Mountains. I just hope my car makes it.”