As most people know, I’m planning on pursuing a reporting job in television news upon graduation. I’m not sure where I’ll end up, but I could be anywhere from Maine to Florida and maybe even out west. It’s scary — not knowing when I’ll get a job or where I’ll be. But it something that I’ve known about this industry for awhile and am excited to one day explore.
Over Christmas break, I decided to something a little outside-of-the-box: I applied to be a camp counselor for the summer. I went to a Greek Orthodox camp about an hour and a half outside of Pittsburgh for over seven years while I was growing up, but I was never able to go back and be a counselor because of my various internships. However, I’m not applying to counsel that camp. I am applying to be a counselor at Ionian Village, which is also a Greek Orthodox camp, but actually located in Greece.
I was never a camper at Ionian Village, but my dad was a counselor in the 80s, three of my cousins have been campers and counselors and my brother actually went as a camper last summer. Everything they said about the camp sounded so incredible and I decided to give it a shot. I had to fill out an application with multiple essays and ask a few people to submit recommendations on my behalf. I also had to film a 90-second video showcasing my creativity and silly-ness while convincing the camp’s directors that I would be a good counselor. I ended up settling on a spin-off of anchorman, which can be found on YouTube.
I won’t know until the end of February whether or not I am accepted as a counselor, but I do know that everything happens for a reason. I never saw myself as someone who would graduate from PSU without a job lined up, but I think that the opportunity to spend two months in Greece meeting new people and serving as a role model for teens would be incredible. I figured that this could be the only opportunity that I will ever have to not work for a while and go explore the country that my family is from.
This sounds incredible! I can’t wait to see what the future has in store for you!
Marielena,
I think it is awesome that you decided to step outside-of-the-box for a while. That’s something that a lot of us are too fearful to do with aspirations of having well paying jobs lined up after graduation.
Something that has grown extremely important to me in my decision making is the uniqueness of the experience I am considering. As you said, working at this camp and exploring your family’s country of origin is not an opportunity you may have in the future, so I definitely think you are making the right decision in trying to pursue it.
I’m sure that you’ll get the job and have an incredible experience!
Ok – first off, that camp sounds awesome! I know some people don’t like uncertainty – but I found in Iceland that the best things are unplanned (anti fragile might be a book you’d enjoy on this).
Second – I’m really curious to see if you’ve considered any new experimental news platforms. While youtube channels might be lower than your paygrade there are a lot of media companies on the internet that are challenging the traditional news distribution platform. Although there’s something awesome about being on TV, are you interested in any of the other mediums?
Yahoo, for example, who is trying to position themselves more as a media company instead of a Google competitor hired Katie Couric to anchor their global new report. There are a lot of ways this can grow in the future, though it still has a long way to go to compete at the scale of a traditional television news.