Alex Ngaba ’24 — I am grateful to Wabash College, the Career Service Office, and Dr. Roy Kaplan for helping me secure this internship. Also, I appreciate the Wabash Liberal Arts Immersion Program (WLAIP) for funding my internship experience as a camp counselor at Camp Grier in Old Fort, NC. Without it, I’m not sure if I would be here right now. The WLAIP last summer helped build my resume and gave me confidence going into the start of my college career. The feeling of securing an internship out of state is terrific, considering I’ve only been in the United States for four years. It all started when I asked Dr. Roy Kaplan if he could help me find a summer internship because I wanted to get busy for the summer. He asked me if I would be open to working outside Indiana, and I accepted the offer.
I never worked in a camp before, and I never did an overnight camp either. It’s the first time for everything, and I like to connect with nature. The staff members are polite, respectful, and patient. In the first two weeks, everyone had to go through staff training. My role is to work on the farm and help mentor the other counselors. The farm has chickens, pigs, bees, a greenhouse, and a garden that we use to harvest plants. I had to learn how to feed animals and become a beekeeper too. My job is simple compared to other duties. Every day we receive campers who visit the camp. Once they arrive, we talk about how chickens eat while finding ways to protect them from eagles and snakes. A group cannot see all the animals at once because we only have two hours for each program. The farm program sees campers Monday to Thursday.
The main reason I accepted the position was to enhance my communication and teamwork skills. During the past few weeks at Camp Grier, I learned a lot from the campers and my supervisors. I have never experienced this much group collaboration, problem-solving, and team spirit, which is everything I wanted from this internship experience.
