School

So. I went through a bit of a rough patch with my school so I thought I would update with what exactly went down.
I was told that my school was going to contact me about my next steps after I accepted. Well a month went by....then two months...then two and a half months...at first I thought nothing of this and figured they didn't care so I didn't contact them. But finally I shot them an email and asked if there was anything I needed to do before I left for Disney and this is the reply that I got.
Sarah,

Your first step would be to call our office (618-650-3708) to get your resume critiqued and to have Co-op Orientation. When you call, you should ask for an appointment with Laci and she can do both of these in an hour appointment. You would then need a half hour appointment with me to cover everything that needs to be done at the University before leaving for Disney.

However, according to our records, you are a Senior who will be graduating in May. If this is the case, you will not be eligible to do the Disney College Program through our office. You will need to go on your own after graduation. If your grad date is an error, please update your profile with the Cougar Jobline to reflect your correct date.

SIUE does not offer credit for the classes offered at Disney. I am not aware of any possibility of transferring these credits in either.

So naturally this confused me. First of all why didn't they contact me with all this stuff I had to do when I was accepted 2 months ago?! I wasn't sure why they needed my resume or why they said I would be ineligible to attend through the school since all Disney required was that I was a student when I applied. I also am not graduating in May. They never updated their records. So I didn't call, I went in person and brought a friend with me because I felt I needed a witness. I met with this woman and she said that I needed to submit my resume for approval before I could leave for Disney. And that after August which is my new graduation date Disney would have to decide to keep me or not. WTF.
So I asked why and she said that since I wouldn't be a student my co-op would no longer be in effect and I would need to be kept on as a regular part timer. This didn't sound right to me. And it still doesn't sound right to me but I spoke to my recruiter and she set my mind at ease and told me I had nothing to worry about.
I then told her that my resume is a theatre resume and it probably doesn't look like any resume she's seen before and she said that it should be fine and to just bring it in for approval. They would put this resume in their system so people in my career field could access it and consider me for jobs. Which I saw as pointless because i'll be working at Disney. I won't be able to accept any other job. Also I'm pretty sure there are 0 theatre companies looking at the SIUE database for potential job candidates. We're not even on their radar.
So I brought in my resume and this other woman essentially laughed in my face at my resume format and my chosen career field. She said she couldn't approve it because it wasn't a resume. I fought her and said it was. It was a theatrical resume. She said I also needed my professors to approve it and I said that we had worked together for an entire semester creating and fine tuning it and she looked dumbfounded that any professor would approve such a thing. She said she couldn't approve it until it had my graduation date, GPA, skills (my skills had things like dance experience, laughing, instruments, sewing. She wanted my WPM which is actually 87, pretty impressive. Also Microsoft Office skills, I have none. I spent my whole life training in other things that are actually relevant), and to take off my stage roles and replace them with actual employment experience. I almost snapped at her. I told her that it was a terrible idea to put my graduation date on a resume because it ages me. It gives me a set age which will limit me, the theatre company decides how old I am. My GPA is completely irrelevant, they don't care. To a theatre company laughing is a legit skill. It's not easy to laugh convincingly on stage. She didn't care. She gave me resume templates and told me to follow these and to return tomorrow with a new resume. I left the office in tears. I had never had anyone treat me like that before. To look at my career and my resume and everything on it that I have worked my entire life to accomplish and say it's worthless....

I slave over this new resume until all hours of the night. And it's truly pathetic. I have never seen a more pathetic resume. It was cookie cutter, it was not impressive. It was a theatre resume with a year of work experience at Jimmy John's. Not relevant. At all. Not impressive on any resume really. But it's all I really had. I brought it in for my appointment and the other woman I spoke to before told me that they will go ahead and use my original resume. My jaw dropped. I could not believe that I had just gone through that humiliating experience and stayed up all night working on this new resume just to have them say forget it. So my original resume was uploaded and now I just need my training agreement from my recruiter. I don't know what that is, but I need it apparently.

This whole thing was way more complicated than it should've been. I cannot believe I had to go through that. I talked to a friend of mine who did the program a couple years ago at a different school and he was dumbfounded as well. He said he just said "Hey school, I'm doin this program" and they just said "Cool. Good luck. Have fun."

And after all this they're not giving me credit! Even though this co-op thing will keep me as a full time student there's still absolutely no, 0, zip credits involved.