A recent university graduate shook hands with Mickey Mouse earlier this month after her group placed second in the annual Walt Disney Imagineering University Design Competition.

Jameka Kelly, of Smith's, travelled to Disneyland with three members of her senior class project to present her theme park design for the competition. The group finished in second place for their original design, Cultural Garden, at the competition, which is held every year at the theme park in California.

The design competition encourages engineering and architecture associations or university students to design theme park elements such as a ride, an attraction or a hotel, according to the competition pamphlet.

Ms Kelly said she was working on her design for a group project in her senior design class when the group decided to alter the landscape design to meet the requirements for the Disney competition. "The judges were really impressed because instead of just designing a single element of the park we took on a whole theme park. They also liked the fact that we could quickly change our design to fit the specific guidelines for the competition," Ms Kelly said. A recent graduate of North Carolina Agriculture and Technical State University, Ms Kelly received a bachelor of science in landscape architecture.

She said her team created the theme park design that included hotels, conference centres, a nature reserve and camping grounds specifically for the design class but later changed it to be able to enter into the competition.

"Out of the 25 entrants to submit our project our group was one of four to be chosen to travel to present our design.

"Not only did we present our theme park but we also got to see behind the scenes of the rides and animation at Disneyland," Ms Kelly said.

The four group members each selected points of interest to design and Ms Kelly took to designing two different sections of the amusement park that she said had European and Oriental themes. The group was presented with a cheque for $1,500 each and their award by none other than Mickey Mouse, she said.

Initially wanting to go into horticulture, Ms Kelly changed her major to landscape design because she said she never wanted a typical nine-to-five job.

Ms Kelly plans to continue with her interest in landscape architecture and hopes to go to the Harvard Design School in the next couple of years.