The DCP application process is a long one, and many of us wait a month to three months to get through the entire process. Many of us will read tons of articles to pass the time. The Disney College Program is a topic that there are a plethora of articles and youtube videos about. You can watch everything from apartment tours, vlogs, to articles detailing the nitty gritty process of selecting roommates, check in, and Disney College Program transportation.

To add to the pile of DCP related articles, here are a few things that most people don't tell you ... that are important to know.

You will probably get sick in the first week.

Your body is going to be exposed to a new climate, and an environment filled with lots of people from all over. In most cases, the body responds by getting sick. During my first program, my entire apartment got a mysterious flu within the first week that spanned an entire month (it circulated). Trust me, it's miserable to be sick during training. A stuffy nose and a headache makes it extremely difficult to focus. The best advice I can give is to begin taking vitamin C regularly leading up to the DCP. Also start establishing a stock of hand sanitizer. Trust me, you'll use it. After my initial bout with illness, I began a regimen of taking Airborne and zinc lozenges whenever I woke up feeling gross or stuffy. This usually helped to circumvent a major illness, and I stayed relatively healthy throughout the course of my program. Just accept that you'll be around a lot of germs and your body can't always handle it. So you'll either be sick, a lot, or you may have to splurge on some serious protection against all the germs.

There is a right and a wrong way to do the DCP.

One of the first things you'll realize after arrival is that the DCP isn't always as magical as we would like. If you're the type of person that does the bare minimum and tries to skate by, the sad truth is that you'll probably be miserable. The DCP has the possibility of being the most magical, amazing experience of your life ... but you do have to make an effort. Never stop going to the parks, even if you're tired. And try and think of everything from a positive, magical perspective. Otherwise, you'll lose what many cast members their "pixie dust."

Yes, many of the full timers hate CPs.

An argument that often circulates the boards is that non-CPs hate CPs. This topic gets shuffled back and forth. Interestingly enough, the part timers don't seem to mind CPs from my experience. Though we reportedly steal their hours. It's the full timers that look down upon us. Why? Many full timers, from what I gathered, view us as lazy and impolite. Not always true, of course, but a few bad eggs can easily give CPs a bad reputation. You will very rarely encounter the full timers because they work during the day whereas CPs are scheduled night shifts. On the off chance that you do get scheduled a morning shift (it does sometimes happen), just be prepared to get treated like you're stupid. That was the general reception I got from the full timers until I, eventually, took my college off my name tag and put my hometown underneath my name.

There are always new things you can learn.

Training never ends. There are always new things you can learn to make you a wiser and better cast member. For one, try learning a few phrases in Spanish and Portugese. Though you may not have a language pin, it will make the entire process a little easier and will save you from desperately having to seek out someone with the language pin everytime you encounter a non-English speaker. As a general rule I taught myself how to provide very bare bones directions and go through a basic transaction (I was in merchandise), and this made the day go smoother.

Your hard work won't always get acknowledged.

While it would be great to run off to Disney and get four keys cards galore, the truth of the matter is you can be the best cast member ever and seldom ever will your efforts get acknowledged. Don't let the lack of acknowledgement dull your sparkle, though. Every now and again, a leader will acknowledge your hard work, or a guest will thank you or acknowledge what you did - and these occasions, as few as they may be, are what you should work for.

There are tons of other things that could be said about the DCP, these are just a few of the things that are infrequently mentioned. Whatever you do, keep a hold of your pixie dust and I'm sure your college program will be amazing.