Summer Camp Jobs to Build Your Teaching Resume

One of the best ways to get experience working with children and youth is to have a summer camp job. It's one thing to baby-sit for your neighbors, but it’s another thing entirely to have primary charge of 13 ten-year-olds for a week or two at a time! Working with children one on one is very different from working with them in a classroom or a camp environment, and many young teachers credit their early teaching success to the valuable experiences they had when holding jobs as summer camp counselors.

What Will You Learn?

There are many valuable things to be learned from working at a summer camp. While most college students or slightly older people who have jobs at summer camps prefer to be cabin counselors, this job is not for everyone.  The job of cabin counselor is an all-consuming one, somehow the equivalent of a live-in nanny. You will sleep in the same room as your campers and your daily life will be inextricably linked to their lives. If they won’t be quiet at night, you don’t sleep either. 

On the other hand, you have a high investment on getting them to go to sleep for the very reason that if they don’t, you won’t get to either. While it’s not always fun to work as a cabin counselor, this is by far the best way to really get to know the campers. When they leave at the end of the week or the end of a three week session, the good-bye can be a tearful one. They’ve connected to you and you to them. It’s one of the fundamentals of establishing relationships with children.

Other jobs at summer camps - less consuming ones - include being a particular activity instructor. This is the second-closest position to the campers. You will see the campers all day every day, but after dinner and campfire time, your time is your own. This can be a good summer camp job option for someone who’s not quite ready to live in a cabin with a dozen campers. 

Still other options can be found in administrative tasks or food preparation or grounds maintenance crews. All of these jobs are physically part of the summer camp, but these jobs are not the best ones for preparing teachers.  If you are training to be a teacher or are just considering becoming one, the best way to find out is to just jump in, feet first. You’ll be up to your elbows in giggling girls, mosquito repellent and tennis rackets, but if your attitude is right, you’re set up to really learn what it’s like to work with children day in and day out.