Sad story of my life: I never went to camp as a child. It felt like all my friends did – they would leave for four to six weeks during the summer and come back with ridiculous stories about cabins and counselors and all the fun they had. And I had been at home watching Bug Juice and Totally Circus (which also made me want to join the circus) on the Disney Channel.

Right before I started my freshman year of college, an older friend said something very interesting to me. He said: “Living in dorms is basically like an extended version of summer camp. But with more drinking and less laundry.” I explained to him that this metaphor was lost to me since I’d never actually been to summer camp. After he briefly mourned the fact that I had missed out on an epic childhood experience, he said, “Well, summer camp is basically being dirty all the time and vaguely annoyed by everyone around you, but you’re too busy to notice because you’re simultaneously having fun and trying to keep your head above water.”

Too true, sir.

After three years of living in dorms, I can tell you this: college is exactly like (how I imagine) summer camp. And so, I have some advice for all the college kids out there who never went to camp.

You will never feel clean. From fishbowl showers that never work right to sub par laundry facilities (and your inexperience with buying laundry supplies), you will legitimately never feel 100% clean. Just like camp? Camp showers might actually be better than most dorm showers.

Everything is completely overwhelming. Between classes, new friends, dorm rules, parties, learning Greek life and all the other groups of campus, sorting all of your belongings to fit in a minuscule space and adjusting to a new routine, it’s easy to feel like you’re trying to decide between horseback riding, water-skiing, volleyball, archery, rock climbing… You’ll wish that an awesome camp counselor had outlined your days for you. [Editor's Note: Oh wait, so that's why they make us sit with those guidance people before each semester? Oopsie! Guess those schedules weren't just a suggestion...]

At first, you will love every single person you meet. Every new person is a potential new friend. Especially if you are going to school a long way from home, you will be super excited to meet anyone who is nice to you. This will happen before you realize that your next-door neighbor is a complete creep and that girl down the hall? She will sing obnoxiously in the shower every morning at 5am.

School cafeterias = camp mess halls. My freshman year, my entire class went to an orientation in a sleep away camp set in the Idaho mountains. It was my first experience eating camp food and let me tell you, it was nothing to write home about. However, the minute I got back to campus and ate at the cafeteria, I realized something: it’s all food you can cook over a fire and burn to taste “better.”

Your RAs, professors, and advisers are like counselors. Your RA will talk you down when you want to strangle your roommate. Your professor will cross their arms and refuse to give you an extension on that paper you forgot to write during the weekend of Toga. And your adviser will gently pat you on the back when you try to talk yourself into taking your first 400-level class. Regardless of how silly they might think you are, they will all still love you.

Even if you never got to go to camp, college life will show you exactly what you missed out on: constant over-stimulation, massive amounts of people your age converging on a small tract of land, ridiculously bad showers and facilities, uncomfortable mattresses, adults you look up to while also hating a little bit…

College is like summer camp for kids over 18. Except with more drinking, slightly less supervision and much better electronics.

“If the entire bunk is mad at you, could it be something that you’re doing?” She asked.

I started to cry. Not because she was right – those girls were being cruel to me, not the other way around – but because now even my counselor was being mean. My 11-year-old mind couldn’t wrap itself around her reasoning. I didn’t do anything wrong and she’s taking their side? Why not call the other girls over and tell them there was something wrong with them? I want my mom.

But now, a little older and a whole lot wiser, I wonder if Stacy’s argument holds true.

I’ve been single for three years now. Three long years. I’ve had my fair share of post-bar trysts, but nothing that hasn’t ended with a few awkward stares as I strolled back to my place in the outfit I wore the night before. I’ve also had a few dates here and there but, again, none of it ever panned out. I’d like to think it was all my choice – that there was something wrong with each and every one of the guys I’ve gotten naked/drinks with – but now I’m beginning to wonder if maybe the problem isn’t with all of them and is actually with me.

Yeah, I didn’t call them, but they never called either.
And yeah, I was fine with having a little late night fun, but why didn’t any of those guys ever call me when they weren’t on their way to Panchero’s for a 3am burrito?

I think I’m a pretty great person – my friends seem to like me well enough – but there can’t possibly be something wrong with each and every guy I’ve interacted with in 3 years. And if that’s the case, then the only other possible option is me. I’m the common denominator. I’m the only other factor in this equation. And that means I have to change.

But change what?
And how?
And is that even fair?

I have always refused to change for anybody – I am who I am and that’s it. If you like me, great; if you don’t, then get out of my way. Should I really have to change just to rope in a boyfriend? And even if I figure out what I’m doing wrong and change it up, won’t that just be the beginning of a really inauthentic relationship?

But at the same time, it’s not them it’s me. And is it really worth fighting change if that means I’m going to end up alone?

My college has a week of orientation, so it never really felt like school until I walked into Geology on Tuesday morning. Before that, I had been watching movies with other freshmen, exploring—well, really getting lost in—the campus, and trying every imaginable ice cream combination at the dining halls.

From the moment I walked into my class, I realized I can’t just watch movies and eat ice cream for the next four years. Buying textbooks before the class was its own problem—really, if a book is used, shouldn’t it be dirt cheap, not just a fraction less expensive than the new version?—but being in a room filled with strangers, most not naïve first years like me, was unnerving.

In high school, the first day was one of my favorites. Sure, I hated knowing I had a year of work ahead of me, but I loved seeing old friends, catching up on summer gossip. Here, I sat down and immediately started taking notes. What part of this lecture was important enough to write down? Who was the person sitting next to me? Was I allowed to raise my hand to ask a question?

And then came the dreaded syllabus, something I’ve never used before. So now I have four separate syllabuses from my classes, all confirming that I will be piled down with reading and papers for the next few months. Not only is it overwhelming, but it’s making me feel hopeless to even consider joining clubs or having a semblance of a social life in college while keeping up with work. Sure, I worked hard for the last four years. But that was nothing.

What really scares me is I just don’t know what to expect. One professor told me to call him by his first name, but I’ve heard that another thinks “Hi Professor _____” in an email is too informal. Upperclassmen have told me that some professors expect students to drop by during office hours, while others think it’s a nuisance. How am I supposed to gauge what is expected from me?

From new subject matter to new academic expectations to new professors, I am overwhelmed. When I look at my cluttered dorm room and list of homework in my agenda, I still can’t believe I’ve been here for less than two weeks. And I can’t help but partly wish I were back at camp, not college.

But this article in the New York Times reminded me of a particularly nasty piece of work I encountered during my counseling duties that summer. She was the mother of two abnormally hyper and mischievous twin boys who I had to supervise on the bus every morning and afternoon. Frankly, the kids were easier to deal with than this woman. She makes the helicopter mothers mentioned in the article appear to be merely “concerned.”

In addition to supervising a group of kids at the camp, my older brother and I were bus counselors on the vehicle that transported campers in our area. Every morning as the bus approached her house, the crazy woman would come outside wearing her pink, flowery robe and greet us with a sickeningly sweet smile, only to go completely apesh*t on us that afternoon. She would yell at us the moment we pulled up, blaming us if she got a call that day from the camp about her devil spawns’ misbehavior.

I’m pretty sure she was bipolar, because one moment she would be calm, and the next she would be screaming like a banshee about how the camp was lying about her boys’ behavior and how we should be fired for not doing our job. She called the camp director just about every day to complain about us and the lousy job the boys’ group counselors were doing. I fought the urge to tell her that her parenting was the problem, not our performance.

One day was particularly horrible. My brother was sick, so I had to ride in the front and control these kids by myself. When we got to the twins’ house, their mother saw that my brother wasn’t on the bus and outright refused to let me help her sons into the bus. I couldn’t lay a finger on them or else she would start screeching. I decided that my arms weren’t long enough to box with her that morning, so I let her buckle them in herself and yell her head off at me for my brother’s absence, as if it was my fault. When we returned that afternoon, she alerted me that she had called the camp director and told her to fire both my brother and me (I later learned that this specific phone exchange had caused the director, usually an upbeat and friendly woman, to cry right in her office).

My brother and I held out until the Friday of the last week – known as “Palm Friday,” since the counselors generally get tips from the parents that day. The parents of every single kid on the bus tipped us except for the mother of those twins. She even had the nerve to say that she wasn’t going to tip us because we were – and I quote – “horrible excuses for camp counselors.”

Unfortunately, the woman and her twins live not too far from my street. I often pass by their house on my way home from school. But a friend of mine was unlucky enough to encounter her during the year. My friend was walking her dog around the woman’s house one day, and the moment the dog squatted on the lawn, the woman ran outside screaming, “MY KIDS PLAY ON THAT GRASS! GET YOUR DOG’S SH*T OFF MY LAWN!” My friend had a baggie with her and every intention of cleaning it up, but the woman wouldn’t calm down for a good ten minutes and even chased my friend out of the neighborhood.

I think it goes without saying that I didn’t return to the camp the next summer. When the mothers become worse than their kids, that’s when the real trouble starts. These experiences make for great stories, but eight weeks of suffering just isn’t worth it for me.

[Photo courtesy of NYTimes.com]

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