Andrew Week 2: CIT at the JCC

 Over the summer, I was a CIT at the JCC camp on our campus. Was it a good experience? Well, it was definitely interesting. I was at this camp for four weeks. I came in the middle of the summer, so most of the campers were already used to their counselors. I was curious to see how the kids would react to a new person telling them what to do.

My campers were between seven and nine years old. I was excited to supervise kids of this age. My rationale was that they wouldn’t be too young so they were independent enough, but that they also wouldn’t be too old so they would listen to what they were told. I soon realized, however, that children are still children, no matter what age they may be.

Although I did certainly have fun with my campers, it was definitely a lot of work. I’ve never really had to be with younger kids for a long time before, so this was a very new experience for me. The days felt long at times, and the kids weren’t always perfect. However, I feel I got so much good out of it. Although I wasn’t sure about doing it in the beginning, I ended up having so much fun with my campers by the end. I made many new friendships with other counselors, I learned how to manage younger kids, and I had a lot of fun. It is very easy to be apprehensive about starting a new job, especially if it’s something you’ve never done before. Once I was done with it, however, I was so happy that I did it, and I had so much fun with my campers. My question for you is, have you ever worked a job that you weren’t sure about and ended up loving it?