As college students bare large amounts of stress over perfecting their resumes and tweezing their potential career identities, it seems to be an overwhelming norm to acquire a prestigious “summer internship” to help boost their credibility in this all-hungry work world. Although I have not reached that point in my timeline, I feel it creeping up on me by the summer. I cringe at this thought because my summers have consisted of working and living in the place I love: a place called camp.
Ten summers ago, my mother decided to send me away to summer camp for a month. As a timid nine year-old, the idea of living away from home was a death wish. How could I possibly function without my mother? Was anyone going to kiss me goodnight? Who does the laundry? Who’s going to tell me to clean? I was weirdly and obsessively concerned with who was going to take care of me. Upon arriving, I began crying profusely as if I was being tortured cruelly rather than being at an all-girls summer camp. And it wasn’t even one of those weird 80s horror movie type camps. This place was surrounded by postcard-esque scenery that L.L Bean catalogs wouldn’t dare to touch up. Every rock and root seemed to be placed in so perfectly; a true supermodel of nature. And yet, on that bright June day, I was not going to be left off alone in the woods with a bunch of smiling strangers. I kicked, wailed, and screamed. My last vivid image was seeing my mother from the inside of my cabin’s screen door; I was locked in a prison of wood.
As I lay in my bed my first night, thinking how I was sure to perish before my month in prison was over, my counselor came over to my cot and scratched my back, talked, joked, and even sang to me until I fell to sleep. (It felt like hours but I’m sure I was passed out by 9:45) For the next month, I fell fast and hard for a place I can confidently call home now. I wouldn’t have felt this way if it weren’t for the superhero counselors I looked up to with such respect. Looking back, I can’t believe that I am now filling those shoes as a counselor to young girls, and can’t think of a better way of spending my summers.
A day in the office
Although internships prove to be good practice, my job at summer camp prepares me for the unexpected problems, the miscellaneous bits and pieces that build my character and make me more equipped for-in lack of a better word- life. I have come up with a brief list that touches on just the surface of things my summers as a counselor has taught me:
- 12 year-old humor
- How to clean up throw up (in the woods and out)
- How to cure homesickness
- When curing homesickness fails, how to deal with it
- Creative problem solving
- When a camper wets the bed, how to covertly change sheets and mattress within minutes
- The art of writing letters
- Functioning without electronics in this tech-crazed world
- How braiding someones hair can fix most problems
- Leadership by way of professionalism and goofyness
I can think of dozen more reasons, which makes me feel more confident as I go back summer after summer. Although some may think as this as a “safe option” I think of how each summer shapes me differently and strengthen me far beyond any summer internship can stretch me. I will always be grateful for camp, a paradise that also duals as my workplace.