This year, I was faced with a tough decision that many juniors face. The ever pressing question of whether to do an internship, improve my resume and potentially secure myself a job for post-college or to work at one of the toughest jobs I’ve faced in my 20 years of life: camp.
I chose camp. It wasn’t an easy decision. Actually, it was once I made the call, but the pressure I felt from the world around me made it difficult. I felt that by choosing camp I was throwing away my chance at a professional career, and I felt confused. Is an internship the only way to secure myself a job post-college? I thought so. I was almost entirely set on an internship.
But then I thought about camp, the impact it had made on me, the trials I had faced, and how it had changed me. Surely camp has its merits too, I thought. I thought about the person I was when I had first walked on the campground. I was a city girl who hated spiders and was just tired with college, ready for anything new or different. I was eager to learn the ways of camp.
By the end of the summer, I was healthier and stronger than I had ever been. I had a new-found confidence that can only come from singing camp songs with campers at the top of your lungs. After a summer of T-shirts and Chacos, I cared a lot less about my appearance. I can build a fire with some confidence, and I have no fear of killing spiders for campers. But is any of this actually useful for the real world? I mean, building a campfire isn’t usually a job requirement.
It was when I was putting camp on my resume, and was listing my transferrable skills that I realized just how much I had learned from camp. Sure, building a campfire isn’t a job requirement but what about ingenuity and persistence? If you are trying to build a campfire in rain, you are going to need some persistence, especially when hungry little campers are counting on you; you find a way. Maybe taking care of sixteen campers for a week doesn’t feel very applicable to life but what about the responsibility that comes along with that? You have 16 pairs of eyes watching you; you have to set an example, they will follow your lead. If you are upset about the rain, they are too.
Being a camp counselor develops leadership in a way that I don’t think an internship ever will be able to. Working with a co-counselor develops communication skills and builds relationships. Adaptability and flexibility become the motto of camp. A willingness to learn, to put yourself out there, and to go beyond your comfort zone become normal day-to-day life in camp. When will I not use that in a job? The responsibility of looking after campers trumps filing papers, making copies and going for coffee runs any day of the week. The right employers are looking at our character, and what we’ve done to challenge ourselves.
To all my peers who are doing an internship: I wish you the best of luck! Not all internships are about the coffee runs and making copies but to those of you who are feeling pulled in both directions, analyze exactly what you’ll be doing during your time as an intern. Will you get opportunities to be a leader, to enhance your creativity, and to be stretched as a human being?
I am confident that when I enter the workforce, I will have the ability to adapt to situations thrown at me. I will have creativity and ingenuity because of the times I had to build a fire in non-ideal conditions. I will be optimistic and enthusiastic in all I do because that was the standard at camp. I will be willing to do the dirty work (even if it isn’t physically dirty like it was at camp). I will have highly developed communication skills because of the times I had to explain canoeing and archery to my campers. I will have bold and blunt confidence that can only come from leading campers in a crazy song.
When I tell people I’m returning to camp, they say, “Oh, that should be fun.” Yes, it’s going to be so much fun; I can’t wait to see what adventures this summer holds. But on top of being fun, I am going to learn lifelong skills. I will be grown and matured into an adult. I am going to be made into an employee who can contribute to society, and I’m not even going to know that all of these things are happening. Who would have thought that leadership and professional development could happen in a canoe, a cabin, or on a rainy hike? Who could have known effective communication skills could be learned while wearing a baseball cap and Chacos? Could anyone have guessed that the hardest working, most ingenious employees could be made at a summer camp? Any person who has had the joy and pleasure of being a camp counselor for a summer could tell you.
