Questions from a potential Counselor

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Schyleur
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Questions from a potential Counselor

Post by Schyleur »

Hey Everyone!

I am new to the board, and I am glad that I found it!!
I went to Space Camp, Academy, and Advanced Academy, and AC basic.

Just recently graduated from college, and I have always wanted to go back to camp and be a counselor, but never could in school cause of the training I did. I went for a degree in Applied Aeronautical Physics, which is just a rediculous way to say I went to school to fly airplanes.

So, I have looked at the web site, and the 2007 Handbook, but was wondering if there are any current counselors on here to answer some questions: How many hours a week are you normally on clock for? And how hard is it to do the add on training for ASA and Mach 3 (especially mach 3, I have my CFI and CFII and LOVE talking about flying to anyone that will listen), the airport staff and whatever? Asking this mostly cause while I would hope to get an RA position, I do have a car payment and student loan payment I have to be able to cover. Also, How much downtime each day do you normally get? I am a pretty big runner, so having like an hour or so when the sun was out (perferably, dont like running in the dark as much) would be nice. What is the social atmosphere between councelors like? Is it comfortable to work there.. or overly regimented? I figure to expect quite a bit of control from above considering that you have care for peoples' children, and the ops tempo to be pretty high, but rather what is the ops tone like? If that makes any sense. And other than that, is there anything about working there you don't like? Not little nit-picky things, there will always be those.. but big things that surprised you or gave you second thoughts? I really want to ask what is it really like to work there.. but I am pretty sure thats way to vague of a question.

Two other off this subject things:

I know we have some counselors on here that are prior or current military, and I am wondering if any of them went through their respective services' OTS/OCS programs. I am working on my package for AFOTS and would like someone with a little more knowledge thats not a recruiter to talk to.. Looks like at least a year or more of waiting even if i get accepted though.

And second, does anyone know a counselor named Heather from the ASA Christmas 98 program? I think she might have been there for most of 99 too, but I am not sure. She was awsome, and I havent heard anything about her in years, so I am wondering how she is doing. If any of you were there around then, post or PM me if you know, I'd appreciate it.
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Vincent
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Re: Questions from a potential Counselor

Post by Vincent »

Schyleur wrote:How many hours a week are you normally on clock for?
That can vary greatly based on how much staff they have available at any given time and how many kids are at camp at any given time. During the Summer you can usually count on at least 25-30 hours while at other times the sky is the limit on hours. Want to work 80? Great! 100? Even better.

Does anyone know who has the record and what it was? 114 or something?
Schyleur wrote:And how hard is it to do the add on training for ASA and Mach 3 (especially mach 3, I have my CFI and CFII and LOVE talking about flying to anyone that will listen), the airport staff and whatever? Asking this mostly cause while I would hope to get an RA position, I do have a car payment and student loan payment I have to be able to cover.
Training for those just generally comes around as needed. If you start in the late Winter, you have a good chance of getting to train for most/all of those.
Schyleur wrote:Also, How much downtime each day do you normally get? I am a pretty big runner, so having like an hour or so when the sun was out (perferably, dont like running in the dark as much) would be nice.
Anytime you're not on the clock is downtime. If you're working 25 hours; a lot. 100 hours...not so much downtime.
Schyleur wrote:What is the social atmosphere between councelors like? Is it comfortable to work there.. or overly regimented?
Fantastic.

And that's about all I can speak to (and even that's a little out of date info...anyone who has worked there more recently or in the Spring, feel free to weigh in)
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