Chaos, tears, and unexpected interactions — that’s the life of a Lakeside counselor for four weeks at the Investigative Learning Camp. If you were a sophomore or junior last year, you may remember getting an email asking you to apply for a counseling job in July. With nothing else planned for that month, I decided to take my chance in applying — and needless to say, it was a roller coaster experience.

Taking place at the Lakeside Middle School, Investigative Learning Camp (ILC) is a camp for rising third through eighth graders, featuring classes such as debate, marine biology, musical theater, sports activity, and international cooking, to name a few. As counselors, we were assigned morning and afternoon jobs — often being appointed as a class Teacher Assistant in either time slot.

If not, we were essentially floaters, doing miscellaneous tasks such as arranging t-shirts and lanyards for the next camp week or getting snacks ready for advisory/break time. Though we were kept busy, we certainly found ways to have fun: playing solitaire in the breakroom, and even just enjoying the morning assembly activities we planned for the middle schoolers. 

Each week, counselors either work with the middle schoolers or the juniors — which is what we called the elementary kid campers. Luckily — or unluckily, some might say — I was able to get the best of both worlds; and with that knowledge, why not mention the experiences from both?

Junior Campers

There is no difference in which group of juniors you’re assigned to — they are all crazy high-energy with no stop in sight.

Working with the junior campers is different: Instead of being assigned an advisory, you are assigned two classes that you’ll stay with the whole day. Either art or makerspace in the morning, and sports activities or international cooking in the afternoon. After having only spent one week with them, I was tired and dragging my feet to the car everyday. However, even though they took more work to look after than the middle schoolers, I preferred working with them by a landslide. 

1.Adorable bundles of … mischief?

Campers are eager to take advantage of a counselor looking away for a split second by partaking in shenanigans that I told them not to — especially in makerspace. With numerous dangerous tools around the space, aside from the teacher, the teacher assistant is the only one allowed to handle them. Does this stop the juniors, though? No. Even in international cooking you can find them starting up a mess, like flour being thrown at a certain counselor (who totally wasn’t me) as a send off. 

 

2.Sass Machines

There was never a dull moment with the juniors, and their comical conversations always led to some sort of eyebrow raise. Defying any instruction given, they always found a way out — usually through their pouting faces. Listen, they are absolutely adorable — who could say no to their faces? A tired counselor could. Though I did try gently to explain why I wouldn’t let them put their finger in scorching hot glue, they learned their lesson while I was helping someone else. Who’s sassing their way out now?

 

3. Dangerous Means of Affection

With the juniors, you can easily see them get attached to you in a day or so. By interacting with them and following their lead during the games and activities they want to play, they start to trust you more than you could ever imagine. When counselors bonded with campers by having “Harry Potter” character names for each other and dancing to “Matilda” during their recess, campers found joy in seeing counselors having fun too. Though, their means of showing they loved having you as a counselor were certainly questionable. Chasing you around the field while throwing water balloons was an extravagant way to demonstrate it, but I applaud their creativity. Getting soaking wet was worth it when I saw how happy they were to see me pelting them too. 

 

Middle School Campers

When it comes to middle schoolers, you can either end up interacting with a chaotic bunch or the quiet ones that take some time to get to know you. From the three weeks I was with them, I experienced a broad spectrum that invariably left me exhausted at the end of the day.

 

1.Camper Age Ranges

The middle school camp housed rising fifth through eighth graders, which led to different experiences when I was found among different age groups. But I wouldn’t say I didn’t enjoy it. Having classes with a variety of age groups entailed some sort of mischief every day, and even though I had to be the “adult” and stop it, these times certainly were some one of the highlights of my time with them. 

 

2.Advisory Whirlwind

Advisories were either composed of fifth and sixth or seventh and eighth graders. Each age group had their own personal preference for what they did during advisory time. The younger grades tended to enjoy playing games such as Mafia or Street Ninja, and getting loud while doing them was their speciality. Seventh and eighth graders, on the other hand, either wanted to sleep or just talk about the latest camp gossip — which was certainly entertaining to hear. 

 

3.Morning Assemblies

Every morning the counselors would have to sort out some type of entertainment for the campers before they headed to their respective classes. These activities ranged from a bottle flipping contest — bracket-style — to lip sync battles at the end of camp. Though we did recycle many of our ideas during the last weeks of camp, seeing the campers laugh and cheer us on always brought a smile to my face.

So, should you apply next year? If you enjoy working with kids, and the stipend may be of interest to you, go for it! Being able to bond with other counselors during camp was also one of my favorite things about being a part of ILC. When the next form goes out, go apply. Seriously, you won’t regret it.