CSI Alumna Elisa Csorba Dares to Follow Her Dreams

As Elisa Csorba ’16 is a self-proclaimed “Disney fanatic,” it should come as no surprise that on the day after graduation, the Macaulay Honors College (MHC) graduate boarded a train to Florida to pursue a career at the Walt Disney Company.

Now living her dream, Csorba has secured a position as a Disney Professional Intern in the Customer Relationship Management Marketing department for Walt Disney Parks and Resorts in Orlando.

“I was able to accept this position confidently, thanks to my education and research experience at CSI,” said the Fontbonne Hall Academy, Bay Ridge, Brooklyn graduate, who worked with Dr. Jonathan Peters and Dr. Michael Kress at CSI, “learning more about the world of data than I ever could have imagined possible.”

At CSI, Csorba used her knowledge of data to spearhead Staten Island Economic Development Corporation initiatives, such as Superstorm Sandy Recovery and Staten Island Fair Share. In 2014, she helped to create an Emergency Preparedness Guide for the disabled community on Staten Island, as many members of this community were not appropriately accounted or cared for in aftermath of Superstorm Sandy.   She also participated in marketing research under the mentorship of Professor William Dubovsky, where she assisted in a semester-long study of the Staten Island Museum to determine how the institution could make itself more marketable and drive higher demand.

At MHC, Csorba was thankful to be “given the best of both worlds: a four-year scholarship with Macaulay and an opportunity to study with the best mentors and professors that CSI has to offer.”

“The School of Business at the College of Staten Island has presented me with such wonderful opportunities, and I am so grateful to have been given those experiences. Four years ago, the School of Business was merely a thought, an idea. This past June, I was part of the third graduating class of the School, and we comprise the largest discipline in the College of Staten Island–if that isn’t success, then I don’t know what is.”

Susan Holak, Founding Dean of the School of Business, commented, “We are tremendously proud of Elisa, her accomplishments thus far, and the role that the School of Business and the College of Staten Island played in helping her to fulfill her goals. We look forward to hearing more about the promising future that we know lies ahead of her.”

A member of the Young Alumni Committee of the School of Business, Csorba fully intends to remain in contact with the School and “all of the professors who have enriched my life in so many ways… I look forward to helping college students understand their dreams and pursue their goals. I’m well aware that the only reason I was able to pursue my dream so successfully was because of the support and encouragement I received from the team of professors and administrators who were behind me every step of the way, and I am so excited that I can now be a source of support and motivation for others.

“So dare to follow your dreams and do whatever will make you happiest in life; dare to do the unexpected and extraordinary; and dare to make a change in the world. Because all it takes is faith, trust, and a little bit of pixie dust.”