I’ve had quite a few jobs throughout my teenage years. I’ve been a waitress, I hosted birthday parties at a bowling alley, and most recently a barista at Starbucks. The list goes on and on. However, out of every job I’ve had my favorite by far has been as a summer camp counselor. It has brought me my best friends, given me numerous job opportunities, and given me some of the best times of my life. I could talk for hours about all of the lessons I have learned at camp, but here are the six most important lessons I've learned as a summer camp counselor.
1. I am Creative
If you asked me four years ago if I were a creative person, I would have said absolutely not. I can’t sing, I can’t dance and I can’t draw. Without these skills, I gave myself a big, fat F in the creativity department. However, after four summers of camp, I have learned that I am creative. I am an idea person. I come up with ideas that most people would not have thought of and then turn to other people to help me execute them. I mean, how many people would be able to write a song about camp to the tune of The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air theme song?
2. Patience, Patience, Patience
I know you’ve probably heard it your entire life, but patience is a virtue. If I didn’t develop patience while working with children, I would have gone insane years ago. Some kids don’t always listen, some just move a little slower than the rest of the group, and some that just don’t want to be there and have a negative attitude about everything. When it comes to dealing with these situations, you need to remain calm and positive, or the children will not react in a positive way. If you get angry and yell at them, the children will start to feel uncomfortable, and no longer want to be around you.
3. How to Listen
Children talk. A lot. Almost everything they say, they say because they want to make you proud. Children look up to their counselors and do things specifically to impress us. They will speak for forty-five minutes straight and if you stop paying attention for ten seconds, they’ll know. This taught me that listening is very important because the things that don’t seem like a huge deal to us, can mean the world to the person speaking. So even when we don’t necessarily want to, or think we need to, listen. You never know how much the other person wants you to hear them.
4. How to Work with Any Type of Person
In my four years as a counselor, I have worked with many different types of people. I have worked with people who love camp, people who just needed a summer job, and people who thought they wanted to work with children, and then felt differently after a summer at camp. Whatever the case, I need to work with them. At camp, our priority is always the safety and happiness of our campers. This is the time in which our differences are put aside, and we work with each other for our campers. Even if we absolutely cannot stand each other, every day we go in and put all of that aside to give our campers the best time possible.
5. You Get What You Give
I have seen people come and go at camp. The people who return year after year are the people who love camp, and have the most fun there. These are also the people that work the hardest every summer and put the most effort into everything they do there. The more you put into something, the more you are going to get out of it. This reminds me that all of the hard work I put into everything I do will someday benefit me more than I know. Continuing to give my all at camp has given me not only an amazing four summers but an incredible amount of opportunities.
6. Camp Friends are the Best Friends
Each summer, we spend thirty-nine days at camp. In these thirty-nine days, I not only see remarkable friendships being made each day, but I make my own. Seeing campers and counselors reunite on the first day of every summer is priceless. Camp has a unique way of creating bonds unlike those created anywhere else. These are the friends that I make sure I see when I am home from school because going ten months without seeing them is impossible. Nowhere else in my life have I created friendships comparable to those made at camp, and I know these friendships will last a lifetime.
Being a camp counselor is not easy. In fact, it is probably one of the toughest things I have done in my life. Yet, I go back every year because it is the only place I would ever want to spend a summer. It is the most rewarding experience I have ever had, and there is nothing else I could see myself doing every year. Of course, there are days I’m exhausted and just want to take a nap, but these are the days my campers seem to inspire me a little more and make it all worthwhile.
