Camp Counselor Job Description

How I Became a Camp Counselor

I chose this job because I've been a camper here and I wanted to give a similar experience that I got from my counselors to the campers that I have. Personally, I feel like I followed a pretty good track because I was a camper here, then I was a junior counselor in training, then a junior counselor, and then I just followed that natural progression.

Camp Counselor Job Requirements

So the job requirements for a camp like Decathlon can vary for position. For me as a counselor, the only rigid requirement is that I have completed my first year in college, and apart from that, the job looks for a few personality traits. So they want you to be obviously personal with the kids, they want you to be responsible, they want you to have sports knowledge. There is a technical part of the interview where you're asked about different kinds of questions related to sports, maybe a scenario that happens in a game or how you would teach a certain activity to the children just to make sure that you have a good foundation. And apart from that, yeah, it's a job where it's entry-level, so there are not many rigid requirements, but they just want you to overall have the personality that fits in well with the kids.

Salary

Salary as a counselor is $700 a week. We get here around 8:30, and the camp officially ends at 4:00, and that's when extended care begins.

Camp Counselor Average Day 

 So the average day is just a variety of activities. For example, like basketball or volleyball, soccer, hockey, all of these we play multiple times throughout the week, and each group will kind of rotate. So we'll get 45 minutes in activity usually. We'll have a few before snack, a few in between snack and lunch, and then a few at the end of the day. And then there's obviously some more fun activities for the campers like we have popsicles before pickup. And yeah, and there are certain activities that groups will do together, so you kind of just build tighter community and have kids make friends with people that wouldn't necessarily be in their group.

Pros and Cons of Camp Counseling

There are way more pros than cons. For example, you get to be with the kids and kind of introduce the sports to them and play with them too, which if you're athletic, is a really fun opportunity. You also get to meet counselors and engage with them and kind of work together to provide a fun experience for the kids. It's just a great atmosphere overall. It can get hot sometimes. Not necessarily a con, but it can test your patience a little bit depending on how your kids behave and whatnot. It can be a little challenging to navigate that sometimes, but it's all part of the job.