Work Hard, Play Hard: Reasons You Should Be a Camp Counselor from a Camp Counselor

With the summer quickly approaching, many college-aged students are probably looking for a summer job. It can be hard to find seasonal work, especially with a pandemic going on, but there is one industry that provides fun seasonal work, fantastic benefits, and adventure like you’ve never experienced before Summer camp. 

The camp world has not been left untouched by COVID-19, with many camps being closed last summer and COVID-19 still being an issue for this summer, many camps are still actively searching for staff members to join their team. Camp is a fantastic place to work for many different reasons, but also offers opportunities you cannot find at any other job. 

While it may not look like it on the surface, camp has fantastic benefits. Not only will you get paid by the camp you work for, but you also do not have to spend nearly as much money as you have to work any other job. Camp takes care of your housing, making sure you always have a place to sleep at night. It also will make you food, saving the hassle of having to buying food and making it later. 

Long drive to work? Not at camp! Working at camp means you don’t have to spend all of your money buying gas to drive places. Better yet, if you like going out into nature or on overnight trips, some camps will pay you to do the things you love. For just these benefits alone, camp is worth looking into, but this really represents the tip of the iceberg.

Maybe you are someone who like jobs that allow for personal growth and exploration of your talents and abilities, a constant test of your skills. Camp is arguably one of the greatest places to do all of this. There is something about being in charge of a bunch of children that are not your own that is oddly therapeutic and incredibly satisfying. 

The deep interpersonal relationships you can build with people at camp allows you to discover new things about yourself and to find the things you truly love and have a passion for. In fact, camp does best when it shows off people’s passions. Teaching kids about your passions, to play instruments, to write poetry, or how to shoot a bow and arrow, may have a hugely significant impact on them, so profound they may end up becoming the next big band or an Olympic-level archer. 

You must always be sharp at camp, willing to be stressed, to be pulled in more ways than you can handle, to be overtired, physically exhausted, to push yourself to your own limits, day after day, week after week. It almost sounds like military training, but this is why this line of work is so satisfying. You do all of this hard work and get to directly see the results of your efforts, as every piece of work you do at camp ultimately is for the campers, and a positive reaction from them means that you did a good job. Smiling, happy campers make the stressful hard days completely worthwhile. 

Even when camp is closed for the year and you return back to the normal world, you will likely find it still impacts your life. Many of the lessons and skills you learned at camp will now heavily affect your life. Maybe you will become better at managing you stress and time, or maybe you will be able to get a job as a lifeguard at a local pool after getting trained to be one at camp over the summer. 

There are certainly a plethora of personal benefits after working at camp for a summer. While you are at camp, you will likely meet coworkers who you will form close friendships with. Some of these friendships may even last a lifetime. An especially great aspect of camp is that it prepares you for parenthood. If you think you may want children at any time in your life, the skills that you learn at camp are invaluable. Being surrounded by children all day will allow you to grow a specific skillset for raising children that you may not have possessed previously. 

Working in the camp world has proven to be wildly rewarding. Personally, I have gained so much from working in camp, things that will last me for the rest of my days. For that, I could not be more thankful. If you need a job for the summer that you will not regret having, look into work in the camp world. 

It may be outside of your comfort zone, it may be hard, but it most certainly will be one of the best decisions you will make if you fully apply yourself to the job. Some days you will look around and be having so much fun that it will not even feel like working. Take a risk and go on adventures this summer, work at a summer camp.