Work and Travel

Scrolling down the Newsfeed of Facebook, seeing those pictures of my friends having fun while studying and travelling abroad, the feeling of envy overwhelmed me. I always wanted to have a taste of living in a new environment at another corner of world. However, the fees and expenses to study and travel abroad are just way too high and unaffordable. Thus, I always kept this little dream within myself until the moment I found out about the USA Work and Travel Program from the Speedwing advertisement in my university. The fee to take part of this program is affordable and the participants could even earn travelling expenses by working for three months in the foreign land. Thus, I decided to persuade my family to sponsor me so that I could achieve this little dream of mine. I believed this was the golden chance for me to jump at the chance to be more than a tourist but to immerse myself in a new culture and have an extraordinary lifetime experience.
I was fortunate to have eight friends to join the W&T program along with me.
All of us were employed by Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk, California and worked as ride operators and game operators. As an engineering student, it was fascinating to be able to see how those rides worked and the mechanisms to operate the rides.
This was somehow related to what I have learnt in the university. I would never find any meaning of those mechanisms by just reading through all the textbooks until I saw it with my own eyes. At the same time, I learnt about the management system of such a huge theme park company and gained knowledge about the safety and human resources arrangement. As a ride operator, we are the rules enhancer in order to ensure no accidents or injury happens while the customers having fun on the rides. At first, I was worried that it would be tough for me to operate such a huge machine / ride such as Cliff Hangers and Cyclone and handle the customers all by myself. However, most of the customers and supervisors are caring