Career focused camps give southeast Michigan teens an edge

The March 2013 issue of Metro Parent focuses on the benefits of summer camps for high school students, including a focus on the career and college preparation summer camps Oakland University is offering in Mount Clemens June through August.

Read an excerpt of the article by Kristen J. Gough below:

Many colleges are offering summer fare for high schoolers. They experience campus life and explore ambitions – or, just as importantly, discover what they might not want to be when they grow up.

Looking for a way to give your teen a leg up on making a smooth transition to college after high school? What about helping him focus more on his studies once he's there? Would you like to shorten the time your son or daughter spends in college? If you answered "yes" to any of these questions, then you might be interested in a surprising solution – enroll your teen in summer camp!

Once thought of as a time for arts, crafts and outdoor adventure for younger children, summer camps have changed through the years. Now, many southeast Michigan area colleges offer summer camps targeted specifically for high schoolers who want to get an edge on career planning. In these camps, teens are given the chance to explore their career options – some even allow kids to live on campus while they're at the camp.

If you've been looking for a way to jump-start your teen's interest in college – and more to the point, a career – summer camp may be the way to go …

At Oakland University …, Julie Trube, the director of enrollment and community outreach, sees summer camps as a way to "nurture a college-going feeling within the communities that we serve." In their summer programming, there's a wide range of camps.

First, for teens who aren't sure what kind of field they're interested in, "career exploration" camps take a look at a variety of options. Each day of camp, teens get a look at high-growth, high-demand careers and sample what it would be like to work in that field.

Another popular choice is camps that are within a particular career field, such as nursing, engineering, computer sciences and more. These camps help introduce teens to the various career options within that field. For example, your medically minded teen would have a chance to consider nuclear medicine and radiologic technology and specialty fields, all before she gets to college. Or for your entrepreneurial teen, he gets a crack at learning what it takes to manage his own business.

And for students who already know what field they're pursuing and even an area of expertise within it, what about college-prep camp? At Oakland University's College Readiness Boot Camp, teens learn what it takes to get into college and how to decide on a college. There's even coursework on financial aid and how to find scholarships.

"The more kids can explore a career and be exposed to a campus atmosphere, the more likely they are to go to college," says Oakland University's Trube. But that's not all: She points out that teens tend to be more focused once they get to college if they have some idea what career they want to pursue.

Read the full Metro Parent article online here or pdf here.