Ten million young people attend over 12,000 summer camps every year in the United States alone. Many of these are traditional day and overnight camps, with the best of them offering strong academic components as part of the camp experience. However, an even more interesting and growing trend is for young people to head out, and I mean really head out for their summer camp experience. Teenagers are now leaving their home countries and participating in international summer camps—the most popular ones being in Latin America and Europe. These international camps take the academic focus to another level by not only helping prepare students for college admissions, but also building important international skills that will stick with them for the rest of their lives.
With these trends, it is becoming apparent that studying abroad is no longer just for university students and in fact high school students are now one of the fastest growing segments as they sign up in droves for summer camps and other study abroad opportunities. Young people and their parents are motivated by a number of factors, especially the need to strengthen their college applications and to be competitive for scholarships. Strong exam results and good grades are no longer sufficient as more and more universities place heavy emphasis on language skills, international experience, and community service. As universities work hard to globalize their campuses and internationalize their student populations, young people and their parents definitely need to take note, because this means young people need to globalize and internationalize themselves as well.
One of the easiest jumps into international immersion for high school students is through an international summer camp. These camps provide students with a schedule and environment that allows them to feel completely supported and safe for their first time international experience. The format for international summer camps usually looks something like this: 24/7 supervision by experienced chaperons, language studies for 3 to 4 hours per day, accommodations with a local host family, and cultural activities, social events, and adventure tours take place outside of class.
The best international summer camps extend the language-only model and include other options for students to augment their language and culture studies, such as soccer clinics, surfing, and even SCUBA diving. Volunteering and service learning are also great components that the best international camps offer; young people can build their foreign language skills as well as gain valuable experience in community service working with children, saving sea turtles, building homes, or working on coffee farms. These programs don’t just provide cultural experiences, but even more important they push young people to become more independent thinkers, better communicators, and internationally knowledgeable and competent!
We at Maximo Nivel believe in experiential education as a means for students to develop important life skills and as a means for them to transform from international learners to global citizens and leaders. From this, we have developed our Youth Spanish Camp to be a part of aiding students towards this goal. Our Spanish Camp is offered during regular school breaks December – January, March – April, and June – August, and students can join us in Costa Rica from 1 to 8 weeks. Our Youth Spanish Camp offers optional academic tracks including: Spanish only, Spanish & Sports, Spanish & Service Learning, and AP Spanish Exam Preparation.