When it comes to summer camps, the sheer volume of choices out there can be almost overwhelming for parents and kids who have no idea which venue to choose.
But for WW-P students Glenn Harris and Sarah Derman, a free search service called Tips on Trips and Camps helped simplify the camp-selection process and resulted in summers that were anything but boring.
On top of his participation in concert choir at High School South, where he serves as the treasurer for the Choir Council, Glenn Harris juggles his responsibilities as captain of the boys’ fencing team’s foil squad, being a varsity member of the debate team, and participating in the Junior Statesmen of America.
Maintaining good grades, which have also earned him membership to the National Honors Society and Mathematics Honors Society, is also a part of the agenda for Harris, a senior at South.
For Harris, summer is not the time to take breaks from immersing himself in learning and trying new things. In fact, for one half of this past summer, Glenn Harris spent his days taking classes. He spent the other half practicing his fencing skills.
Harris was at Amherst College’s Putney Student Travel program, where students choose two courses of study that are offered in the form of college-style lecturers, field trips, active discussion, and group projects.
While it may seem like a repeat of student life during the school year — study and athletics — the summer programs in which Harris has participated for the past three years allowed him to learn without the pressures students, especially in the WW-P district, endure throughout the year.
It also helped Harris to come out of his shell and meet new people. “At South, there is a tremendous amount of pressure to get As, and there is a grading system,” he said. “That pressure does not exist.” And, “there is a social element to the whole thing as well as an academic.”
Harris began enrolling in summer programs in the summer before ninth grade, when he spent three weeks at Haverford College for its Junior Enrichment Program, and then spent two years at Yale’s Explorations program, where he took morning classes and electives in the afternoon.
Harris and his parents found out about the various programs through Nurit Zachter, the Princeton area representative for Tips on Trips and Camps. Through the consulting program, Zachter sent brochures and information to Harris, tailored to his interests, for free.
“Glenn was interested in doing some type of academic enrichment program initially,” said Robert Harris, his father. “He wanted a fun way to spend the summer, but something other than going to summer camp. The fact that you could go to them [Tips on Trips] for free advice on summer programs and camps” helped in Harris’s decision each year.
Robert Harris said the family found that Haverford’s program fit their son’s needs in his first summer away, but without being too far from home (in Pennsylvania). The following year, Tips on Trips and Camps led Harris to the Explorations program at Yale, where Harris attended for two summers. This past summer, however, Harris wanted to try something different.
“The best things I got from all of them was that it was not high pressure where I could learn but also make friends,” he said. “In the morning, I could go to class, and in the afternoon, I wouldn’t be pressured to do homework, and I could go out with friends to a restaurant.”
At the same time, each program had its benefits and its downfalls. Harris felt that the economics courses at both Amherst and the Explorations programs “added very much the knowledge that I had.” But, for example, a French course he took at Amherst, which was described as an advanced course and that students would have to have completed two years of high school French to enroll. “There were people there who pretty much couldn’t speak it,” he said.
Harris said he took courses in subjects he would be interested in pursuing in college, including business and environmental chemistry.
In addition to the academic enrichment programs, Harris spent the past two summers heading to a two-week summer course at Penn State University for fencing.
“A few years ago, I was a lot more introverted, and these programs really helped me socially,” said Harris. “It opened my eyes to the fact that there was more to life than just academics. To be a good person doesn’t just mean to be a smart person.”
Harris, who has been accepted at Michigan and Penn State and is awaiting word from other colleges, said he would recommend attending a summer program to anyone who was contemplating doing so. “They’ll learn more about themselves and more about the people around them,” he said. “They will also become a little less susceptible to the pressure that exists in the WW-P community.”
Having lived in West Windsor his entire life, Harris’s father, an attorney, moved the family to West Windsor because his job re-located from New York to the area. His wife was also an attorney but is now a full-time mother.
Robert Harris said he also noticed his son’s social transformation after the summer programs. “He was introverted to start,” he said. “We viewed the programs as being good, not only for the academic content, which we knew he was very interested in, but also the social aspect. I think the programs are worthwhile. They gave him exposure to certain academic subjects he got to pursue in depth.”
Harris said he still keeps in contact with friends he made with other participants in the programs, who hail from places “as close as Westchester and as far as Paris” and even Belgrade.
Sarah Derman’s East Coast Encounter
Meanwhile last summer, another South student and a fellow West Windsor resident was spending her summer in a completely different way.
From Quebec to Virginia, West Windsor resident Sarah Derman spent last summer water skiing, white-water rafting, riding roller coasters, and sea kayaking up and down the eastern part of North America.
In her own words, it was like a “vacation without your parents.”
The 14-year-old freshman at High School South enrolled in a summer program run by Westcoast Connection, which offers various trips for teens all over the world to enable them to try and experience new things while having fun. Derman decided to enroll in Westcoast Connection’s East Coast Encounter program, which took her from Boston, to Acadia National Park in Maine, to the Kennebec River, also in Maine, to Mont Tremblant in Quebec, to Montreal, and then Toronto and Niagara Falls. From there, the group traveled back into the United States to Cleveland, Washington, D.C., and Virginia.
The tour traveled to and from each destination via motor coach, and Derman was lodged in various settings, from college dorms to resorts, and even camping at one point.
“The company made each day full of activities,” Sarah said. “However, the staff gave us free time to explore on our own, which I really liked.”
Along the way, the teen tour visited Busch Gardens, the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, Cedar Point amusement park. Among her favorite activities were white-water rafting, shopping in Montreal, learning to water ski, and sea kayaking.
The most memorable part of the trip for Derman was the last night of the tour, when the group held a farewell party in the hotel, complete with a DJ to provide tunes for the night-long endeavor. Derman said it was hard for her and her fellow travelers to leave each other behind after bonding all summer long.
Half of the teens on the trip were from New York and New Jersey, while the other half consisted of teens from around the country as well as a few international students. Derman befriended a girl from Spain with whom she still keeps in touch over Facebook.com. “I enrolled in this program by myself, without any friends,” Derman said. “It was not necessary to go with a friend because I made friends easily, and the staff really tries to help us all get to know one another.”
Like Harris, Derman is a lifelong West Windsor resident. Her father is a doctor, and her mother is an accountant, and the family moved to West Windsor after her father found a new job opportunity.
And also like Harris, Derman discovered the teen tour program through Zachter, of Tips on Trips and Camps. “All I had to do was give her some information about what type of camp I was looking for, my age, some interests, and she sent some brochures to my house,” she said.
For Derman, deciding to go on a summer trip, as opposed to remaining local for the summer, was simply as a result of her desire to try something new and have fun. This summer she plans to stay close to home – and volunteer.
