Dollywood partnership results in valuable internships for students
May 19, 2021
Maryville College’s proximity to tourist mecca Sevier County means more than opportunities for fun and entertainment for its students. It also means great jobs, meaningful internships and other significant practical experiences for up-and-coming professionals.
Two Maryville College students – D.J. Cooper ’22 and Sydney O’Hara ’22 – will spend their summer interning at a major Sevier County tourist attraction – Dollywood Parks and Resorts. Bearing the name of one of Tennessee’s most famous natives, Dolly Parton, the Dollywood Company is a highly-awarded and widely-recognized leader in the amusement industry made up of the 160-acre Dollywood theme park, the 35-acre Dollywood’s Splash Country, Dollywood’s DreamMore Resort and Spa and Dollywood’s Smoky Mountain Cabins.
Cooper, a junior business analytics major, will intern in the company’s business analytics division, while O’Hara, a junior finance/accounting major, will intern in finance. Both are entering paid internships.
The two were among six students who participated in on-campus interviews March 30-31 that were held after weeks of preparation with staff members in the College’s Career Center and classroom professors – Dr. Sarah Clinton and Dr. Rebecca Treadway in finance/accounting, and Dr. Anna Engelsone and Dr. Jeff Bay in business analytics.
“Dollywood is a well-known brand in our area, so students immediately have a frame of reference or a context for the organization when they hear about an opportunity within it,” said Sarah Taylor Yeaple ’08, director of the Career Center. “And because of that, we had students who were highly motivated to apply and were really excited about the potential opportunity of engaging with this well-known partner.”
Maryville College students have such opportunities with Dollywood thanks, in part, to Melissa Walker ’00, Dollywood’s director of finance, who reached out to her alma mater several years ago to investigate interest in developing a partnership that would augment classroom instruction, give students valuable work-related experiences and introduce Dollywood to emerging professionals who hold similar values about service and leadership.
“Dollywood has a great mission in that they’re trying to create memories worth repeating, and they do it by serving others,” she explained. “So, we are founded in servant-leadership. We want to love the guest; we want to love the host, which is what we call our employees. And we want to love the students who come to work with us for the summer.
“And those values align with Maryville College very well in trying to create that unique experience instead of just a job,” she added. “We want to be an experience that you enjoy, and the work that Dollywood does in the community fits very well with Maryville College.”
Valuable internships
A few years ago, Walker approached the Career Center about partnering for a specific internship program.
“The Dollywood Company wanted a different approach to an internship,” Walker explained. “We wanted a project-based internship instead of task [based], and we approached several different local schools and worked with Maryville College to come up with a program that was different and unique. We wanted real-world experience. We wanted to give the students opportunities to sit through meetings and learn skills that would help them transition from student- to work-life.”
In 2019, MC students Jordan Berry ’20 and Zach Caldwell ’20, both finance/accounting majors, had the opportunity to contribute to projects related to Dollywood’s park expansion. They worked on design concepts and scenario analyses and participated in meetings that involved everyone from top executives to entry-level employees.
“And the experience that they gained that summer is stuff that they will be able to carry into their career for years to come,” she said.
Yeaple called internships like those offered by Dollywood “incredibly valuable.”
“And one of the ways that they are valuable is that students get an opportunity to apply the skills and concepts that they’re learning in the classroom to real-world situations, so they get a real feel for how their skills are useful in the workplace, as well as what it might feel like or look like to work in an industry or for a specific company.
“So it gives them insight into the way their skills can be used and how they can leverage their academics, as well as insight into the environments in which they might thrive the most or be the most comfortable.”
Beyond internships
COVID-19 prevented students from interning at Dollywood last summer, but the impact of the pandemic on Dollywood’s parks and resort made for an informative and engaging Zoom class led by Tom Gieseking, Dollywood’s vice president of finance and technology, and attended by finance/accounting students this spring. Gieseking explained financial issues related to the shutdown, reopening and operating within major constraints.
In addition to the summer internship program and occasional classroom presentation, Walker has taken advantage of other opportunities to invest in MC students. She regularly participates in Career Center-organized panel discussions about careers in finance and accounting, and she also serves her alma mater as a member of the Partnership Advisory Council (PAC).
“We provide input as business leaders into the curriculum being offered to the students,” she said of the PAC.
Partnering for progress
The Maryville College-Dollywood partnership is generating the kinds of opportunities Walker wishes that she had had as a student. Although happy with her academic- and co-curricular experiences, she said she lacked occasions to apply classroom lessons to the real world and to network with people in her field. Today, she wants current and future MC students to have more access to experiences that develop them as young professionals and introduce them to mentors and friends who can be resources, whether they decide to work for Dollywood or not.
Walker gives high marks to the staff of the College’s Career Center for the work they do for students and employers. Interviewing Maryville College students March 30-31 alongside Jacob Miller, senior finance manager at Dollywood, she said deciding who to offer the positions to would be difficult – that all of the six students could contribute to the company this summer.
“Our candidates have been well prepared,” she said. “They interview very well. They’re very excited about the opportunities, and they’ve done research on our company. They’ve listened to us speak here, and they’ve asked us phenomenal questions.
“They’re interviewing as well as other people we have coming in from workforce,” she added. “And you know, to say that someone who’s still in college is interviewing as well as someone who has five years of business experience is phenomenal.”
Written by Karen Beaty Eldridge ’94, Executive Director for Marketing & Communications