I am entering my Junior year and am worried that my summer activities seem too ordinary compared to some of my friends, who are doing things like internships and research.
While I do enjoy my summer activities, part of the reason I do it is because they coincide with activities for my younger brother (8 years younger) and my parents rely on me to help with childcare and driving during the summer months.
For example, I am a camp counselor at the camp that my brother attends, so I also take him to and from camp and watch him until my parents get home from work. The same goes for the summer swim team we are both part of. I also work as a lifeguard in addition, so those 3 activities take up most of my time.
I would like to major in engineering and have heard that I should be finding STEM based things, but I can’t figure out how to fit that in. Will it be a problem that I don’t have these more exciting activities in the summer?
You are doing what you’re supposed to be doing as a teen who will attend college.
You’re working at a summer camp;
You are lifeguarding;
and You are taking care of a younger sibling.
Those are very respectful as EC’s for engineering because it shows that you have discipline and can manage daily work schedules.
These all are good ECs, which are setting you up for what you have to do when you get to your college.
Ask me how I know? I had three children all of them worked at amusement parks restaurants and one worked in a hotel cleaning rooms. Son who worked as a bus boy, got into Caltech for computer software engineering.
Daughter who worked directing lines at an amusement park, is a computer software and electrical engineer double major.
Daughter who worked cleaning hotel rooms graduated from her med school.
What I learned was that colleges and universities want NICE, respectful kids who have worked and have earned a little money and can juggle a schedule.
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If you want to major in engineering, then you will want to attend a university that is ABET accredited. There are a LOT of very good universities that are ABET accredited for multiple forms of engineering. This probably includes your in-state public university (or multiple of your in-state public universities if you come from a large state). You do not need to attend one of the very highest ranked and most famous universities to do very well as an engineer.
For the large majority of very good universities, ECs really are not all that important.
Even for the most famous and highly ranked universities, you should participate in the ECs that make sense for you. Being a camp counselor is a very good EC. Helping to take care of a younger sibling is a very good EC. Being on a swim team is a very good EC. Being a lifeguard is a very good EC. The point is to be responsible and work well with others. This sounds like what you are already doing, and doing well.
Also, your ECs do not need to have anything to do with your intended major. Some top schools (Harvard and MIT come to mind) do not even admit by major.
By the way, you might want to read the “applying sideways” blog on the MIT admissions web site. As I understand it, it recommends that you do what is right for you, and whatever you do, do it well, and treat other people well. It sounds like this is what you are already doing. This approach of “do what is right for you” is what my family has done, and it has worked for us (at 8 different universities for the four of us, one each undergrad and a different one each for a graduate program). However, what we each did was very different. We each just did what was right for us personally.
In terms of ECs, I think that you are doing very well.