Overnight Summer Camp – As a Camper and a Counselor
It might be a complete mystery to individuals who may have just heard the words “overnight summer camp” for the first time. In fact, the concept of summer camp isn’t quite easy to explain for those who have not had the experience. Overnight summer camp is a one of a kind, truly unique experience. It is like being transported to a magical, fantastical realm, where you can be yourself- whether funny or downright ridiculous, adventurous, or contemplative and downright peaceful and quiet. At overnight camp, you meet like-minded people and people so 
different that you wouldn’t have imagined you would cross paths with in a hundred years, or a lifetime. The new people you meet and interact with become your best friends for life in just a span of a week. Summer camp is a wonderful place where you can hang out with your peers all day. They will be your entire world, and you will be theirs as well.
You have the chance to be the coolest kid in camp, the best one they have ever met, so cool and awesome that they would want to simply learn everything about you. You can even be their role model, the one that they can look up to. When you are assigned the task of being accountable and responsible for another person (as a counselor or junior counselor), or to a group of people, you will experience a feeling like none before your whole life. Getting the job right by positively affecting the people around you with your words and deeds- the whole learning experience itself is a reward that will stay within you for life. Now where else can you do something like that?
How Overight Summer Camp Had a Positive Impact on My Life?
As an individual, overnight summer camp taught me how to grow. It taught me how to be the person I am now, and even showed me how to become the person I wish to be. It taught me important life values such as tolerance, patience, confidence and kindness. It equipped me with the invaluable skill of turning a child’s crying into a smile with just a few magical words. Camp gave me the confidence to speak up about my ideas, as well as my problems, where universities and schools fail to do so. I can say with full confidence that I have learned more during my last 3 years’ worth of summer camp than the 18 years I spent in formal education. Though at camp I wasn’t learning about English, Math or Science, nor were there any certifications or formal qualifications, I was learning something far more important. I was learning about how to be a human being, skills that aren’t taught in school
but are essential in life- compassion, good social skills and etiquette, not worrying about the little things, how to use the environment to your utmost advantage, how to analyze and think on your feet, how to build a proper fire, how to have a sound plan B when plan A fails, working with 10 year olds, or people of all ages, how to gain respect and give respect to your elders, how to set aside conflict and work for a greater good, how to be proud of your work, how to reach your fullest potential as a person, and most importantly, how to be yourself.
I really wouldn’t be the person I am today if it weren’t for summer camp. I wouldn’t have the same ideals, the same great plans and the same big dreams and ideas. I wouldn’t have the same confidence as I have now. There was no other place I felt more at ease than when I first arrived at summer camp. Camp isn’t just camp for me- it is my home away from home, the place where I can let go of inhibitions and be comfortable doing my own thing, with no walls and no pretenses. The supporting environment of camp taught me to just be myself wherever I go and whatever I do in life.
Overnight summer camp changed me in ways I can’t really fully explain. And yet, without camp I wouldn’t be where I am now, attempting the things I wouldn’t have even dreamed about over the last few years.
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