This past week I attended the Weinstein winter training program through my camp in California. Since the fifth grade I have attended a Jewish summer camp called Camp Ramah in Wisconsin. Ramah is a conservative Jewish camping movement with nine different locations across the country and Canada. Every June I was eagerly awaiting the end of school and the start of the summer which for me only meant one thing: camp. Like most summer camps, Ramah was a place for me to express myself in ways and through opportunities that wouldn’t be possible back at home. It’s a place to which I credit some of my greatest memories and closest friends. Ramah is an entity that I have strongly associated myself with for such a major part of my life would honestly make me feel weird and uncomfortable not returning to summer after summer. However, after experiencing one summer already as a counselor and a semester at college I am forced to face the cold truth that at some point I will have to spend a summer doing something else. It’s weird to think about and even weirder to put into words because I don’t know what a summer without camp is like.
In an era where academic and job competition are at its peak, college students are really trying to hard to find valuable work experience through summer internships and other types of “resume boosters”. I would hope to think that most professionals would consider working as an overnight camp counselor as valuable work experience, but the reality does not hold true to this. This past semester I attended my first career fairs. I had to submit a professional resume to multiple of my class. On campus, I am surrounded by 30,000 other very intelligent and very capable students making sure that by the time they graduate, a job of their choosing will be theirs to have. So yes, the pressure is on to get a summer internship, something I can add to resume which will hopefully land me a good paying job in the near future.
By accepting the invitation to this staff training program, I gave my camp a verbal agreement that I would return for my second summer as a staff member. This pressure that I’m starting to feel about me eventually having to get a job in the real world is just going to have to wait another summer and that’s perfectly fine with me. I made this decision because one: I love camp and two: being a counselor last summer was one of the most meaningful and valuable experiences I have ever had. As a camper I was gifted with outstanding counselors who not only were in charge of me for eight weeks but represented (and still do) my most influential role models and closest friends. Working as a camp counselor, at any camp, is as valuable a work experience any teen or young adult could get. My job description at Ramah does not just limit itself to only focusing on the care and safety of my campers, but to develop them into mature, independent, and strong individuals and future Jewish leaders. At the Weinstein training program, I learned different strategies for being a more effective counselor, compared program ideas, but most importantly, was reminded of why being a counselor is so important. I have the opportunity to be a role model for a large group of young teens, helping them to develop and strengthen their social skills, educational curiosity, and individual identities. I am excited to return for another summer at Ramah to not only be with some of my closest friends who will also be returning staff members, but to make an impact on the lives of my campers. And for me, that’s as valuable a work experience one can get.
