Job Hunting: What Summer Camp Should I Work At?
Isabel H
Illustration by Nat B-S
This summer, like many Oberlin students, I worked at camp. I spent two months at a sleepaway camp in upstate New York, connecting with the youth and empowering the next generation. It fucking sucked. So I’m going job hunting!
I asked 12 Obies about their camps in order to find my next summer gig. Here’s what I found:
Oberlin College Precollege Program
Mission statement: Learn all the big fancy words you’ll need in your postcolonial feminist theory classes at your pretentious liberal arts college!
Activities: Memorizing the dictionary, learning the best ways to reference Kafka in any class, how to style the ugliest goddamn sweater you’ve ever seen in your life
Notable camper: The Oberlin College student body
Salary: $2000 “commitment” scholarship
Camp Green Lake
Mission statement: Did you read the 1998 classic young adult novel Holes and think “that sounds fun?” Well then head on over! It isn’t child labor if you pay for your kid to do it!
Activities: Digging holes, avoiding yellow-spotted lizards, learning the power of friendship
Notable camper: Rosie Eisor, aged 7 with the upper body strength of an adult man
Salary: The loot at the bottom of one of the holes. You just have to keep digging. Keep digging!
Visual Arts Camp for Possessed Little Girls
Mission statement: We help young girls channel the artists within, not the satanic spirits!
Activities: Disfiguring barbies, painting night paralysis demons, making dioramas of the apocalypse
Notable camper: Mary-Beth, aged 10, inexplicably British, understandably had a horrible time
Salary: $12 an hour
Camp Togetherness for Bullied Children
Mission statement: I am strong. I am powerful. I will get through middle school.
Activities: Group therapy, bystander training, martial arts
Notable camper: Trevor Plotz, aged 13, determined to get revenge on that jerk Michael
Salary: $1000 stipend
Camp Rage for Bullies
Mission statement: Fuck you!
Activities: Strength training, group therapy, locking two of them in a room together for three hours and seeing what happens
Notable camper: Michael Brownstein, aged 13, committed to making eighth grade a living hell for that geek Trevor
Salary: whatever you can steal from the staff at Camp Togetherness, with which Camp Rage shares a space
Camp Eureka! for Future Mad Scientists
Mission statement: Who knows what horrors we’ll unleash upon an unsuspecting world this summer?
Activities: Robotics, bioethics, medical malpractice suits
Notable camper: Luke Wells, aged 11, has white frizzy hair and enjoys explosions and dogs
Salary: $9 an hour
Camp 20/20 Vision for Boys with Wraparound Sports Glasses
Mission statement: Our camp environment is as safe and secure as your child’s glasses!
Activities: Looking really closely at things far away, “sports,” Magic: the Gathering
Notable camper: Sammy Hirschberg, aged 8, bright red glasses, made 2 whole friends (we’re so proud)
Salary: $20 an hour
Uta Hagen Camp for the Performing Arts
Mission statement: By the time we’re through with you, you’ll understand the meaning of life and also how to do a jazz square!
Activities: This Obie worked as a bus counselor for an area that was so far away from camp that by the time they got there they had to turn back around, so their agenda consisted of only the theatre games they could play with seatbelts on during the bus rides - a lot of zip zap zop
Notable camper: Daphne Meisner, aged 9, chronic carsickness, 3 octave vocal range
Salary: $2 an hour
Camp Sephora for Tween Girls
Mission statement: Is your twelve-year-old a menace to society? Send them our way!
Activities: Spa night, slowly stealing the campers’ expensive Drunk Elephant and Lululemon products throughout the summer, gaslighting the campers about the stealing
Notable camper: Taylor Levinson, aged 14, had a torrid love affair (holding hands) with a camper at the boy’s camp
Salary: all of the campers’ belongings
Cave Spelunking Camp
Mission statement: Our new record: only three campers lost to the caves last summer!
Activities: Cave spelunking, search parties, frantic calls to parents, memorial services
Notable camper: Marnie Gibbs, forever in our hearts
Salary: survival
Six Flags
Mission statement: What kid doesn’t love amusement parks?
Activities: Buying a one day pass to Six Flags, hiding from the guards at night, camping in the field under the rollercoasters, subsisting off of cotton candy
Notable camper: Stacy Lewis, aged ???, unassociated lost child at Six Flags that sort of just followed the counselors around for the whole month
Salary: “Camp” Six Flags does not have the money for a physical location, much less for staff compensation
Six Flags
Mission statement: What kid doesn’t love flags?
Activities: Driving to each kid’s house, giving them six individual flags of their choosing, leaving
Notable camper: They all blend into one disappointed child at a certain point
Salary: 1 flag split amongst all 100 staff members
