here it is. Keep in mind, this is not a baby CTY summer program.
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Nerd Camp: Not!
By Yani, 12
The stereotypical nerd: a person with big glasses, a nose buried in a book, and no social life whatsoever. This was the kind of kids I expected to meet when I went to John Hopkins� CTY camp at Loyola Marymount University in LA. Because of the 7 hours a day class, being almost completely cut off from technology, as well as a very structured schedule, I had been dreading this camp for the entire summer. Little did I know that three weeks later, at the end of the camp, I would not want to leave. Plus, I did not meet a single stereotypical nerd the entire 3 weeks. The people there were intelligent, but not anti-social. In fact, definitely not anti-social.
I took International Politics, a subject that covers economics, international relation and (you got it) politics. The first week, the class focused on colonization, writing an essay about King Leopold II of Belgium�s brutal grip on the Congo a few decades back.
The second week, we had a World Trade Organization simulation, where we individually pretended to be different countries in the WTO, and argued over one of many issues that the real WTO has to face: agriculture. Among the countries represented in our simulation were China, India, Canada, the USA, and the EU. Among the Non-Governmental Organizations (NGO) represented at our mini-WTO conference were South Korean farmers, Green Peace, which I represented, Monsanto Inc., and an anarchist. We conferred over the issues of export subsidies, tariffs, and taxes.
Among many other things, we also learned about power: definition of power, soft power vs. hard power, etc. Learning about International politics was intriguing and fun: information about the WTO, the Bretton Woods Trio (The International Monetary Fund, World Bank, and GATT which later became the WTO), and other such things are sure to come in handy (especially in sophomore-year World history)
CTY had a stringent schedule, but we still had some free time. Along with social time each weekday night, there was no class on weekends, and we had the option of going off-campus to a grocery store and having a non-cafeteria lunch with our Residential Assistants (RA). Other times, we could order Pizza or Thai food, and once we even had a Barbeque.
On Sunday was an event called �Non-Mandatory Fun�, which was mandatory. Having fun, however, was not. Other weekend Activities ranged from a Quiz Bowl, Casino Night to Water Day. Also, every Friday, we had a dance on the lawn, which always culminated with the CTY tradition �American Pie.�
To many kids, this was the first taste of real college life. Dorm conditions and food, while bad, were tolerable. Plus, we were too busy making new friends from all over the world to complain. Three weeks of living with each other makes as strong a bond as three years of seeing someone once in a while. We had the biggest hall in the entire camp, made up of 16 people. This made for having 2 breakfast tables, 15 people to go around the campus with, and a whole lot of chaos! In order to insure that we were all here, we came up with an arbitrary sentence in which each person said a word: �A large porcupine climbed the apple tree to finish eating paper and salty orange fish (period).�
Now, a few weeks after coming back from CTY summer camp, it still feels weird to go to breakfast without the company of 15 girls, to not wear a lanyard (we had to wear our bright yellow ones at all times, so some people even got tan lines from them!), and to have my own shower. CTY camp was a great experience. From making friends to learning new things, it far surpassed my expectations.
