Camp Counselor - The toughest job you’ll love

~Nicola Phillips

New Zealand

Camp: Youth from across the Globe come work at Summer Camps in the United States to gain International Experience and to travel! Commonly known as ‘Camp America’.

I am from Wellington, New Zealand, and for the past 3 years, I have been returning to America for the summer to work at camp, Camp French Woods Sports and Arts Center. My role was in the Equestrian part of the camp where I would work with the same horses each year, being able to share my love for them and share that with the camp kids! In between Camp America I actually spend time in Africa, where I work with injured wildlife animals, with the aim of releasing them back into the wild! I studied to be a vet nurse, and I am now studying environmental science and wildlife conservation in Melbourne, Australia! 

Doing camp was never my first choice, but it has impacted my life more than I had ever thought! I hope you enjoy reading my journey and look forward to hearing from anyone who may need some advice.

Let's go back to where this started…

I rang  International Working Holidays (IWH) because I wanted to go to Africa.  That’s when I got chatting with (Shelby), one of the workers at IWH, which lasted for about two hours. She asked if I had ever considered going to camp? I wasn't sure that it [camp] was going to be my thing, you know? I hadn't researched it and none of my friends had ever done it, so I wasn’t really sure what to expect. Shelby said, ‘I think that you'd love it!’  and asked if I wanted ‘to give it a go’ I said, ‘why not?’, I'm already going overseas, I'll just put in an application and see what happens. 

The Application Process...

So that day I made a video, which was part of the application process and they sent it to the director of French Woods, Nigel Watson (who turned out to be a Kiwi himself)... literally the next morning I received an email from French Woods Sports and Arts, offering me the job! I was like, “WOW, I'm going to New York!!!” Oh my God. I wasn't even sure I wanted to do this. Everything just happened so quickly! Within only ten days I was packed up and heading to French Woods Sports and Arts, (usually people have months to prepare!)

I thought, “well, it must be meant to be” as I was so late in the application process and Shelby did say to me a few times, you're quite late in the application so I can't guarantee that you're going to get a placement. 

(And it's funny that we're having this interview today actually because I just got a memory on my phone that three years to this day, I was traveling to camp for the first time. A photo that came up on my phone with me and my siblings at the airport as I was leaving for the first time.)

Meeting my best friends at pre-camp...

I did pre-camp in my first year, which is getting the camp ready for the opening day. And it's just a handful of staff with just six or seven of us in my first year. And those friends that I was with Nigel always used to say to me, ‘these girls will become your best friends,’ whatever I do. He's like, ‘no, seriously, these girls will be your best friends.’ One of the girls was from Spain, one from France and the other one from America. And he was like, that would be your best friend for life...And guess what, they became my best friends and still are my best friends today! It's so awesome!

What did you learn about yourself at camp?

I learnt so much from being at camp. I am so grateful for the experience camp gave me. I had no idea what to expect. I had no idea camp would become like my family. Being around new people and teaching kids gave me a new perspective on life.

For example, some of the kids at camp have a bit of a different, underdeveloped perspective on life. So when you're trying to balance stuff out and you have to try to see things from their perspective, they're only kids, and sometimes something that you would think that’s not acceptable, that they are doing, that's the way they've lived their whole life, that is acceptable for them. So you sort of having to put yourself in their shoes.

These awesome kids go to camp every year. They get exposed to different cultures and international people and they also make friends for life. 

I wasn't the same person when I started this journey. I'm not the same person now than I was when I went in 2017. And I say that in a good way. I grew so much as a person. It's crazy. When I look back on myself in 2017 and, and see myself now, I'm so thankful for the camp experience, that it gave me that opportunity to grow as a person. 

Before I left for camp…

I guess you could say I was a bit lost in the beginning. 

So when I decided to go overseas, I was a bit lost with myself and what I wanted to do with my life. I think that by going to a completely new place, totally unfamiliar territory, where you don't know anyone, where you have no idea what to expect, changes you. I didn't know that camp would become like my family, which they 100% did.

I think it gave me direction in where I wanted to go and what I wanted to do in life. I know that camp has nothing to do with my degree but being around new people and teaching the kids gave me a whole new perspective on everything.

Also then the combination of going back and forth between Camp, New Zealand, and Africa, allowed me to grow so much as a person. It's crazy. When I look back at myself, I've actually never been a very shy person, I just hated public speaking and I didn't like talking in front of people. I didn't think that I would ever be someone to give advice, to teach kids or, be like a role model for kids.

That's another reason why I never considered going to camp.  When I saw the video for camp, seeing the things that they were doing, all the outgoing things, I thought no, I'm never going to be that person. Or there's no way I'm ever going to get up in front of hundreds of people. Little did I know that I would absolutely love working with kids, or that I would run evening activities in front of about a hundred staff members and hundreds of kids, where I was the only one talking. Before doing it I thought, there's no way in hell. I would never do that. 

BUT that's what I did, and I loved it...

This has helped me so much. It's helped me in Africa. It helped me everywhere to have more confidence in myself and to be a role model for kids as well. I've always loved kids, but I think it's really rewarding when you work with them so closely and you get to see how they grow, it changes you a bit.

It's the hardest job you'll ever love...

Camp is a tough job, Nigel used to say to me, it's the hardest job you'll ever love.

And it really is hard, but all the good things outweigh the bad. 100% you do get really tired, especially when you're living with kids the whole time. Personal space is not a thing anymore, It's gone out the window! 

It does become tiring and there will be points in the summer where for me,  I was like, ‘Oh, I just wish I could go home for like two days and then come back’ just so I can just go home, give my mom a hug and then come back but all those things are so minor, compared to the experience that you have overall. The experience of camp completely outweighs all the tiny little challenges you face!

One of the most rewarding things for me... among a million other things, was seeing how the kids form relationships with each other and with the horses. Some of them had never seen a horse, they'd never been on a horse, they'd never groomed or cleaned up after horses at all. To see them getting stuck into looking after them, taking a break from their phones, and really looking after an animal, was so special.

It's a pretty unforgettable experience. My friends at home, ask… Why do you keep going back to America and going back to the same place? 

I don’t know how to explain, but you’ve got your close friends at home and you have your friends at camp, it's such a different bond. I'm not saying it's better or worse. 

It's just so different because you're on top of each other. You go through almost arguing and butting heads to then getting on the other side of that and being friends. 

At camp, if you ever have an issue with someone or something/anything, it's been, gone, done, and finished in a day. You've resolved it because you have to, you work together so closely that you can't be having issues. You know each other on a completely different level from what you do, your friends at home. At camp, you're on top of each other! 

I think sometimes in the real world (and not in your camp bubble) if you have an issue with someone or something, quite often, it will be left and kinda pushed to the side and it never gets resolved. That's something I really learned, especially from when I first went to now, it's, it's a good life skill. Problems can snowball!

Different Cultures…

 You will come across people from different cultures and countries which is really quite unique to get used to because you take one thing is not always going to be the same as someone else's take!

One example is that New Zealanders (including me) have a tendency to be quite relaxed about life in general, and with that (cultural) approach at camp, I found a lot of people do not have that approach to life.

 That was quite an eye-opening because I didn't know that until I went traveling, I was in this bubble of New Zealand and I just thought everybody in the world was like people in New Zealand, but that's really not true. Everybody is so different and that is so awesome. 

Another example is that so many people find it so strange that we (kiwis) don't wear shoes... They find it so bizarre that we don't! I never realized that until I went overseas and I was walking around with no shoes, people said, ‘what are you doing? Put shoes on. You're going to hurt your feet.’ It is comfortable and lots of people I know are used to it, but it is something I find quite funny.   

What did you do in between camp?

After camp, I went to Namibia for 4 months!  When I was there I was really lucky I was working quite closely with the vet. He kind of took me under his wing and I got to do some epic stuff with that, and I learned heaps. I also got to research a lot about wildlife conservation and Human carnivore conflict is what they did. I’ve been back to the same sanctuary since. By experiencing that it has completely changed my life and I had made the decision to study wildlife conservation instead of becoming a vet. 

What do you study now?

I have always loved animals and always thought that I would become a vet. In 2015 I did vet nursing, but after getting a taste for travel I couldn’t stop, and I couldn’t commit to 5 years in one place to study at that time. 

I am studying at university at the moment and will be finishing up with a degree in environmental science and wildlife conservation. 

So I'm studying in Melbourne, although I'm not there right now because I came home for the lockdown, I got kicked out of my accommodation. 

Obviously, Australia is a really good place to study it because there's so much wildlife, but I just absolutely fell in love with African wildlife. Eventually, I want to go back to Africa. I'd love to live there, to be a researcher, and work at the sanctuary, and of course, keep going back to camp!