Come and work in America next summer!

USA Summer Camp will be holding an information stand on Cockcroft Mezz and a presentation on campus. Come along if you’d like to find out more about working in USA in Summer 2020. 

Monday 14 October

Information stand: Cockcroft Mezz 12 to 2pm

Presentation: Watts Building 611, 2:15

Read about one student’s experience…

There is no typical day for what camp will look like. Camp is a place where you feel in a separate camp orientated universe. Every day is different and every day you get the chance to inspire a young person to be the best that they can be. Each day there is the chance to learn something new as well as influence a positive change in the lives of your campers. On top of all this, you get paid to do something you love and add amazing skills to your CV.

For the past two summers, I’ve worked at French Woods Festival of Performing Arts in Upstate New York. French Woods is a specialist camp with all the traditional camp features as well as four theatres, a circus as well as a magic department! Campers spend the nights at camp sleeping in bunks alongside two camp counselors.

Mornings at Camp

My first task in the morning is to get the kids out of bed and ready for the day ahead. I and my co-counselors find the best way is to start blasting the tunes and getting them dancing. This gets them ready for the day ahead and begins the non-stop dancing and singing for the rest of the day. When it’s someone’s birthday, the dining hall becomes a hub of theatre with hundreds of campers and counselors singing, dancing and general celebrations!

Activities 

After breakfast, we complete a quick cabin clean-up and head out to our first activity of the day. The kids are able to choose their own schedule made up of Majors and Minors. Major activities are activities that are done every day and contribute towards a larger project such as participating in a musical or being part of a circus show. Minor activities are additional fun activities such as swimming, rock climbing or mountain biking.

If you are a Specialist Counselor, you would head off to teach your activity. As a specialist, my day was spent teaching Sound and Lighting skills in the theatre. Some days were spent getting the kids to create crazy sound effects to use in performances. This often meant heading around camp to see what noises we could pick up to record.

Every day I would have a time-off period where I was able to either get stuck in with activities or relax in the cabin or at the waterfront. With all the different activities at camp, there are plenty of opportunities to pick up a new skill and try something new every day. While at camp I was able to try everything camp had to offer. I even had a go on the flying trapeze in the circus!

Evening Activities

When dinner rolled around there was time for the kids and counselors to have some downtime. After this, it was time for evening activities! Evening activities are my favourite time of the day as there’s the chance for all of the counselors to get stuck in with the activities with campers and every evening was different.

At French Woods, we would spend our evening watching shows and performance that the campers had been working on during their Major activities. We would also have the chance to take part in games like Color War, Capture-the-flag as well as camp sing-a-longs. My favourite activities had to of been the ice cream socials, campfires and themed discos!

Nights at Camp

When evening activities would come to a close, it was time for everyone to head back to the bunks and go to sleep. French Woods has an evening work rota where counsellors and one CIT (Counselor in Training) are required to look after the kids and get them settled in the evening. The other two counselors would take the rest of the evening off.

My favourite thing about my evenings off was sitting by the waterfront on a warm summers night, watching the stars. Days at camp can be intense and being able to wind down in the evening, taking in all the beautiful scenery makes everything worth it, Every day is different but so much fun. You’ll never find a summer job like it.

Check out our website at www.usasummercamp.com and come along our presentation. We can’t wait to meet you and tell you more about camp.