I went to a summer camp, and today I’m going to talk about the parts that you generally can’t figure out if you just research summer camp. Most of the time, when you think of summer school, what would spring to mind? The classes that you would have, the projects, the teachers, and the location itself. That’s what most people would think about, and that’s what you would find on the internet.
But today I’m going to talk to you about the other parts of camp. First of all are the roommates. I, of course, got my brother as my roommate with my great luck. Truly the summer camp experience, paying to travel hundreds of kilometers just to continue sharing a room with the same person. But other than that, talking to my friends, they have become very good friends with their roommates.
The roommates are more or less the most important part of the camp because those are the people you generally end up spending the most time with, and also the people that you have to obviously share a room with.
And then another thing is health. Not many people think about this, but it’s possible that you get sick while you are there in the program or before you go to the program. You could’ve gotten sick because of your own mistake, or because of the food that is served in the program. It could be anything.
Getting sick at home and getting sick at camp is very different because, at home, you have somebody to take care of you, somebody to constantly check on you, or even if you go to school during the time you are sick, you would know everyone there, so there wouldn’t be an issue. But in camp, it’s different. You don’t know anybody there, and you have no one to check over you. You have to manage it yourself, and the same thing goes if you get injured.
And the program doesn’t wait for you. When 300 people pay their own money to come to this program, if one or two people get sick, they can’t stop the program just because of that. The program has been planned for months. Your fever was unfortunately not included in the schedule. So even when you get a fever, the program continues forward. Either you join class, or you don’t.
But one thing I did notice, especially at YTS, which was the program that I went to, was that there were still people checking up on you. Not your parents, but your friends and your TAs. They would check up on you and ask if you were alright. And that made me feel better. There was also an infirmary there, so I was able to get medicine, which was a great thing.
And then, before going, at least I did, I had this nervousness about making friends. But when you go, especially on a residential camp, you don’t have to worry about that. You will end up making friends somehow. When you go from top to bottom in the elevator, you end up talking to somebody somehow, and you will make friends when you continue to talk to them.
Some of them, you only talk to for a day or two before the program ends, and yet they still become one of your good friends.
