<p>My D would like to travel to Spain and work as general camp counselor or teach English. She speaks some Spanish and has the travel bug. She went to Europe on an art trip with her school and now wants to experience abroad for the summer, before she starts her freshman year in college. </p>
<p>I came to the USA when I was 17 years old, didn’t speak much English, never did drugs, managed to survive and got a good education. I feel a little apprehensive about this idea, but I would like to support her in the search. My problem is that I don’t know where to start. How do camp counselors find job overseas? Do you have advice or ideas for her or me as a parent?</p>
<p>Hi, my daughter did this sort of thing last summer, but in France (she loves France and speaks French). She was 19 1/2 and had finished two years of college at that point. She wanted to live in France for the summer and get a job (to pay for living there basically). She applied for two sorts of jobs in the two areas she had job experience. One area was working with kids (at camps) and the other was working in restaurants. She bought a book on summer jobs in France or in Europe and picked the ones that looked interesting to her in these two categories and sent off resumes and cover letters to about a half dozen of each type of job. From that, she got offered a job that she was thrilled to get working at a chateau resort and was going to accept that. She also got an offer (after a phone interview for these) for a summer program that is the one job she did not find in the book but merely found by chance as I was chatting one day with a local parent who is in a graduate program in English as a Second Language and has lived in France and I happened to mention that my D was looking for a job in France and she happened to have received a mailing for students at her college for a job in France and forwarded it to my daughter. My daughter ended up getting this job too. She was going to take the chateau job originally however, but then she decided to do a ski racing camp at Mt. Hood, Oregon in June and it meant having to go to France one week later than she told her chateau job and they felt it was too little weeks and so after accepting the job, they decided to not do it as she also had the other job offer which worked around her dates. </p>
<p>Anyway, my D loved this job. She flew to Paris by herself and stayed two days. She then traveled by train to the training site and then traveled to where she spent six weeks at this program. The program was for French kids ages 9-13 whose parents sent them for two weeks (she worked three different sessions) to be immersed in English without sending them to America. So, the program was an educational program where the kids were involved in activities but had to use English immersion within the activities. It was actually a LOT of work for my D as the staff had to come up with lesson plans and activities that were creative on themes of different English speaking countries. She really loved who she worked with. On her one day off per week, she traveled to various places (including Spain) and she also wasn’t too far from the beach (she was in Southwestern France) and got to go there a few times. When the program ended, she stayed in France for ten days and traveled on her own, mapping out her travel plans in advance. This included skiing in the Alps in summer and also meeting two college friends in Nice. She made close friends with the French counselors and this past fall, while studying abroad in Italy, she traveled to visit the various French friends in Paris, Lyon and Switzerland and still is in close touch. This program in English immersion for kids was only in France and so I am not sure your D would be interested in that she wants Spanish. </p>
<p>I don’t know if this helps but that is how my D went about it and she really had a great time doing it and it is basically what your D wants to do too.</p>
<p>You could get several good books at Borders/Barnes&Noble on summer jobs abroad. It could be too late for this summer though, but you may find something for her…I believe there is a Petersen’s Guide.</p>
<p>MotherMoo, I think you may run into a couple of problems. First, her age, and secondly, it’s a little late to be trying to set something up for this summer. Like Susan’s D, all of the kids we know who have done this type of summer work are college students, and have had it arranged earlier than this. As chocoholic says, make a trip to the bookstore and start there, maybe for the following summer?</p>
<p>I do agree that your D’s age and this late date, make this a difficult proposition. While your D may not want to hear this, she can use this summer to get job experience so that perhaps next summer, she can pursue jobs in Europe and also have established more experience on her resume. One thing that I am sure helped my D secure these jobs was that she had several jobs on her resume related to the kind of work she was seeking in Europe, as well as recommendations from those employers.</p>
<p>This would be a good summer for your D to be a camp counselor here in the U.S. to gain that experience before trying to be a camp counselor abroad. </p>
<p>At my D’s summer camp here in the U.S., counselors have to have one year of college before they can be counselors. At this camp they always have several students from other countries (France, Russia, Germany, England, and others). There is some sort of service that European students can use that matches them up with U.S. camps.</p>
<p>I don’t think it is too late to get a camp couselor job here in the U.S. although your D may be young for it. What about a language camp here?</p>