When you go away to college, you know you're going to want to have real world experiences in the major you choose before you are thrown out into the deep end when graduation comes. Many college students decide to get experience before they graduate college with an internship, which is "needed" for their resumes. There is a competition for internships, specifically the nationally top-ranked paid ones that college students start to worry about getting as summer approaches.

SEE ALSO: The ABCs Of Summer Camp

Summer camp was a constant for me in my life. I had been going to camp for two weeks since I was twelve and when I was given the opportunity to work at the same camp for a summer, I couldn’t say no. It was after my freshman year of college and I wasn’t focusing on internships yet. As I get older, the future begins to get closer. Isn’t an internship what I need? Why would anyone want to hire a college student that spent all their summers wearing oversized t-shirts with cats on them, Chacos, and hair bows?

Camp showed me that I am actually doing so much that will look better to future employers than spending summers getting coffee orders and making copies in a cubical (don't get me wrong, internships can be amazing opportunities!).

According to recent research, an internship won't completely prepare you with all the skills you need to apply for a job after college. The more time I spend at camp, the more I realize that camp is preparing me even more for my future career path, and that isn’t just my view. Being a camp counselor means I am able to manage conflicts, resolve disputes, develop creative new activities with limited time (3 minutes?), work as a unit with other counselors that I may not always see eye to eye with, plan a week-long schedule for 10+ campers that is packed with fun, and also appear (remotely) authoritative.

I got my most recent job specifically because I was a camp counselor. I applied for a management position that I felt completely unqualified for, but right after coming from 10 weeks at camp, I knew all I could do was try my best. In my interview, it seemed that every single answer to a question given to me involved my experience working at camp. Due to being able to lead a team of campers, stay organized, work as part of a team, be authoritative, and confident in my decisions, I was hired on the spot. I was given a management position where I would be in charge of an auditorium at a college of 20,000+ students. I would be managing 60+ staff and working with four other managers while being a full-time college student. Without camp, my boss told me that I wouldn’t have received the position.

My peers know me as the camp counselor, and I wear that title with so much pride. Sometimes they call me a camp counselor due to my Chaco tan line, the huge water bottle, the Christian songs that are blasted on my radio, or the oversized Patagonia; but they always tell me they think being a camp counselor is a dream job. They tell me that making money is their main focus, or else they would love to work at camp. Here's the thing; sure you aren’t making a lot of money at camp, but you aren’t spending much either.

Being a camp counselor allows you to care a little less about your appearance and more about the people you are working with. You become the true definition of a “team player”. You have your whole life to spend time in a cubical, classroom, or office. Why not choose camp till you graduate?