Is there any feeling sweeter than lying on your bed and realizing that it’s finally summer? After an entire year of frustrating assignments and hellish deadlines, it’s easy to be attracted to a season that offers non-stop relaxation.
But while some will sleep their days away and reject anything that resembles learning, others will spend some or all of their vacations enrolled in summer camps and programs. So why on earth sacrifice freedom to follow yet another curriculum? The answer lies in the fact that summer camps can teach so much more than how to light a fire with two sticks.
Craig Lord, a third-year journalism student who worked as a program assistant for the Shad Valley program at Carleton this summer, said he was skeptical when he first heard about the camp in the 10th grade.
According to the program’s website, Shad Valley has been run for more than 30 years as a four-week summer program for grades 10 to 12 with the goal of bringing the brightest students together to focus on science and entrepreneurship.
“Was it a leadership camp? A nerd camp?” Lord recalled himself wondering. “I was incredibly skeptical but my mom was kind of pushing it, so I ultimately decided I’d regret it if I didn’t go.”
Lord said he soon found himself living among like-minded students who, while sharing his initial skepticism, also possessed a great passion for learning.
“[Shad Valley] fosters an entrepreneurial spirit like the idea that we can solve the problems of the world with our ideas, innovations, and business smarts,” Lord said. “So we don’t have to do what has been done before us but instead forge a new path.”
A confidence booster
Inspiring this level of confidence is hardly exclusive to Shad, according to Reagan Bradley, a second-year communications student who traveled to Jonquière, Que. earlier this summer as part of the Explore program.
According to the program’s website, Explore is a five-week government initiative that gives students the opportunity to improve their knowledge in one of Canada’s two official languages.
An Anglophone, Bradley became more confident with her French language skills after finishing the program.
Following Explore, Bradley returned to Ottawa and was working at her Rideau Centre job, she said, where she was approached by a visiting Francophone family from Chicoutimi, a city situated about 20 minutes from Jonquière.
“I explained to them that I just went to Jonquière for five weeks to learn French,” said Bradley. “I explained it all in French and was pretty proud of myself.”
The traditional camp
Improved self-confidence and stronger social integration are two of the areas identified in the Canadian Summer Camp Research Project. Conducted by researchers at the University of Waterloo between 2006 and 2012, the project looked at the long-term effects traditional summer camps had on those enrolled, said Troy Glover, the Waterloo professor who led the initiative. Over the course of the project, Glover and his team interviewed dozens of counsellors and over 1,200 campers, he said.
The study was conducted in three phases: First, determining the exact goals of camp directors, then monitoring camper behaviour to see if they were being achieved, and finally concluding if said behavioural changes continued after leaving camp.
Glover became an advocate for the industry, he said, after working at summer camps for about 10 years.
One of Glover’s goals as a researcher was to create evidence that would convince skepticalparents that traditional summer camps have the potential to teach more than just fun and games.
“There’s a certain culture of parenthood right now where parents are always thinking how to give their kids that edge in terms of being more successful in life,” Glover said, explaining why parents may choose math and science camps over traditional ones for their kids to attend.
The study, said Glover, found that traditional camps help kids develop skills relevant to future success such as emotional intelligence.
Hands-on skills
While some parents may overlook traditional camps in favour of giving their kids that “edge,” confidence and social skills can be developed elsewhere.
Second-year Carleton student Christine Riddell said that Virtual Ventures, the university’s summer tech camp where she works as a program assistant, allowed her to meet people she ordinarily wouldn’t.
“This is the kind of thing that I wish I had as a kid because this is something I would have been interested in,” Riddell said.
Riddell majors in the small interactive multimedia and design program, but said she had the chance to get to know engineering students through the summer camp.
“We’re very small so it’s really nice to meet other students in a similar field as us,” she said. “The camps usually pair up someone in tech and someone in engineering so the camp runs better. I think it’s cool that you’re kind of getting both sides of it.”
Not for everyone
Not everyone enjoys going to summer camp, said Glover. Some, he said, don’t like being away from home for the long overnight stays.
“Just because you’re at a camp doesn’t mean you’re going to have a positive experience,” he said. “There are always going to be issues that arise among some campers, and some people just won’t return because it was a negative experience.”
Now or never
Not taking a chance on a summer program could lead to regret though, Lord said.
“Five years down the line, if you don’t take that leap, I think no matter what you’ll be regretting it,” he said. “It’s up to you to justify decisions like that, but do it for yourself down the road because it’ll be worth it.”
