In Defense of the Summer Job

“What are you doing over the summer?” Spring Term of sophomore year, I detested this question that I just could not seem to avoid. Friends, classmates, and teammates seemed so invested in my answer to a seemingly simple, yet vexing question. Before high school, summer break promised not only much-needed respite from the pressures of school but also the opportunity to savor time with friends and family. Thus, those summers were accordingly filled with trips to the beach, T marathons, and low-pressure soccer games at my local park. 

As I got older, and was introduced to Lawrenceville’s emphasis on competitiveness, I began to see my previous summers, which I had once considered well-spent,  as wasted time in the eyes of my peers. Moreover, as the pressures of college admissions mounted, I grew convinced that everything one did (or, rather, didn’t do) over the summer would make or break their college applications. 

But still, I wasn’t worried. I was planning on working as a summer camp counselor at my local summer camp like I had been for the past two years. I received a rude awakening at a Mock Trial dinner.

For the majority of the dinner, I finally felt like I fit in with my fellow club members. I was dressed in a white blouse, skirt, and heels, eating at a fancy country club, feeling the imposter syndrome that had so prominently marked my initial time at Lawrenceville fade away. 

But all those negative feelings soon re-surfaced as I watched as one of the club advisors rose, clinked her glass, and demanded that everyone share what their plans were for the summer. 

My spirits began to sink as I was forced to listen to each of my dining companions, one by one, share their agendas: Ivy League study programs, working as an intern at a law firm in New York City….you get the picture. 

Finally, when the attention came to me, and all that I could spit out was that I was planning on working as a summer camp counselor, the table fell silent.

The person across from me, perhaps trying to throw me a lifeline, asked whether the summer camp had an academic focus. 

“No,” I responded. “Just a normal summer camp. You know, like taking little kids on nature walks and walking them through arts and crafts.” 

Once again, silence. I felt my face begin to turn red and tears sting my eyes. I felt like a complete failure, purely because I didn’t have something objectively “prestigious” lined up. Following the dinner, I vividly remember going back to my dorm and frantically researching the same programs that my peers had mentioned, seeing if there was any possibility that I could rescue the summer that, at the moment, seemed doomed. 

As I was scrolling through the School of the New York Times’ application page, I hurriedly called my dad, begging him to at least let me apply for the program. 

“But what’s the point of even applying to a program that you know isn’t possible for you to attend?” was his reply. 

I sighed, hanging up the phone. I knew he was right. I could never ask my parents to support any sort of “fancy” internship or academic program, especially after all the money already spent on my Lawrenceville tuition. Besides, I knew that the balance of my boarding during the school year was that my family expected me to come back home for the summer. So that was it. I would be spending the entirety of the summer in my hometown, located in the middle of nowhere, its remoteness meaning anything that anyone would even remotely consider prestigious was nowhere to be found. 

So, as my sophomore year at Lawrenceville came to an end, I went back home to Frenchtown, to start the summer job that I was most certain I would get nothing out of. 

Yet despite the initial shame that I felt watching my peers go off to participate in fancy legal internships or spend weeks learning on Ivy League campuses, something completely unexpected happened. Specifically, I began to not only take pride in my job, but to appreciate that the place which most would view as the middle of nowhere is actually somewhere very important. 

Firstly, the eight weeks I spent as a summer camp counselor provided responsibilities that allowed me to continue to hone so many important life skills: through working second graders through simple arts and crafts, I strengthened my listening and cooperation skills. While leading my campers on nature walks, I was forced to improve my leadership skills in order to engage them in an activity that otherwise would not have been very interesting for a group of 7 and 8 year-olds. After my time at the camp, I took away skills that I continue to apply during my time at Lawrenceville– my gift in good time-management, I like to say, came from the pressures of keeping a group of unorganized, chaotic children on a schedule so we didn’t miss our pool or playground time slots. Simply put, I turned chaos into order, and in that process found a surprising sense of purpose. However, looking past the personal benefits received as a result of my time at the camp, I found the most important aspect of the time spent in my hometown, rather than strolling around an Ivy League campus, was the sense of self-fulfillment that I felt. It felt unbelievably good to give back to my community, and to reconnect with the place that literally created the person who I now am: this was the community where I grew up, and which supported me in so many ways throughout my life pre-Lawrenceville. And yes, these were administratively my campers to take care of, but by the end of the summer they were “my” campers in a much  different sense of the word.  I still have the drawings they made for me as goodbye gifts - without being asked - that mean more to me than I could ever have imagined at the beginning of the summer. One memory in particular that stands out to me occurred on one of those many hot July days spent at the community pool, making rainbow loom bracelets and playing Uno. In the middle of the game, one of my campers asked me a random question(as children tend to do). “Do you speak Mandarin?” “I know a bit,” I replied (mostly from Duolingo). I watched curiously as her eyes lit up, and she proceeded to beg me to teach her what I know. Caught off guard, but determined to fulfill her wish, I grabbed the clipboard across from me, and used a scrap piece of paper to scribble down the characters for 1-10. From that day forward, I continued to teach her all that I knew. While for myself our daily Mandarin “lessons” seemed trivial, I got a taste of what that time spent truly meant for that camper on the last day of camp, when she ran up to me, and shoved a piece of paper into my hand. It was a crayon drawing of the two of us, with my illustrated self counting to ten in Mandarin. At that moment, I understood that to the kids in my group, I wasn’t just the person who would help open a juice box or occasionally push them on the swings. Rather, I was in the unique position to become a mentor, and by extension, be able to make a difference in my community. In my view, being able to fill a role like that is a worthwhile accomplishment.  

At Lawrenceville, it can be so easy to become trapped in the bubble that metaphorically engulfs campus, and to lose a sense of the reality outside of the school’s red-brick walls. I myself became so disconnected from what life really is outside of Lawrenceville, as I became so invested in creating a summer that was “prestigious,” without even realizing that the term “prestigious” is purely subjective. 

In conclusion, there isn’t only one way to spend one’s summer. If you’re willing to put aside others’ perception of prestige, you can find greater fulfillment in giving back to your community and learning the value of hard work through a simple summer job, whether that be lifeguarding at your local pool, waitressing at a restaurant, or what in retrospect became my unexpected personal favorite: working as a summer camp counselor.