Essays

This page displays the personal essays written by CTY students, and the comments on said essays. Please be constructive, no rude or derogatory comments, etc.

  Please do not, in any way, change the actual essay page, aside from formatting; everything
  else should be verbatim.  Breaking this rule may result in warnings/bannage.

Essay:Untitled (EB Saldana)

holy shizzle, EB do you remember me? that girl from cty 2004 at washington college. the girl who needed a psychiatrist?

OMG! MEGAN!?!?!DUUUUUUDE.

"And instead of saying all of your goodbyes, let them know you realize that life goes fast. It's hard to make the good things last."

-The Flaming Lips

-Posted by Silent Bob

Essay:Working for CTY (Anonymous)

I just want to note that while I completely agree that the job is hard, and can be frustrating at times, I look forward to getting to work at CTY each summer. Also, I feel really strongly that the best way to keep the traditions alive is to encourage more and more alums to come back as staff. I, personally, think that giving back to a place that made such a huge impression on me during my adolescence is one of the most important and rewarding things I could do with 6 weeks.

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A former TA's addendum (can I write this here?): Being a TA is not as well-paid, but phenomenally easier than being an RA. Your hours will be more like a traditional 8-hour work day, as you will only be on duty during class hours, with some duties during lunch and right after class, and possibly some grading to take back to your dorm. You will have weekends off, at least until Study Hall on Sunday. The administration of many sites barely even tells its instructional staff about many rules, so failing to 'notice' rule-breaking is easier to get away with (be prepared to confiscate a lot of frisbees over break, though, and you still have to keep class in order). However, TAs' influence on the CTY experience is pretty limited to class time. If you want to help run activities, social time, or dances, be an RA. However, instructional staff on some sites do go to the dances, and TAs who play their cards right may be able to run one or two activities. Socially, the instructional staff is somewhat different from residential staff. At Lancaster, the instructional staff has a lot of returners, and therefore has developed some of its own traditions, which is nice (but not if you're really stuck on the student traditions). For example, some instructional staff at Lancaster have their own circle during "American Pie." Due to the presence of the instructors, returning TAs, returning RAs who transition to TAs, and a variety of other reasons, the instructional staff is an older group overall. I really enjoyed my experience as a TA, though sometimes I think I might have liked to be an RA one year (too old for either job nowadays).

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I intend to become an RA once I am eligible, but I have a question. When I was summoned over to the Skidmore Dean of Residential Life Mike Chin to have detention I struck up a conversation of my idea of becoming an RA. He said that its very rare but sometimes they may hire a senior to become an RA, yet I've never seen one. Is this true?

-Edwin Ma CTY 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006

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Edwin - They try to avoid that, but I think it has happened, at least in some programs. If you REALLY think you're up for it (and think hard on that point), your best bet is to apply really close to the beginning of the session. They tend to hire people in the Spring, and inevitably some of them cancel in the last minute. So people who most likely wouldn't get hired in the regular pool (like high school seniors) may get hired in the last minute.

Seriously, though, when I was a high school senior and longing for CTY, I went to TIP. And now there's the Princeton site. I think it is usually a good idea to wait a bit before going back as staff. There's plenty of time for that in college.

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Somebody wrote this on CTYTherapy: [1]

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Being an RA is really more of a lifestyle than a job. That being said, I've had an impressively diverse employment history, and I can unhesitatingly say that being an RA was the best job I ever had. At Lancaster, I would estimate that on average, between 25-40% of the residential staff are in their 2nd or 3rd year as an RA.

I would strongly advise against trying to be an RA after senior year. I'd guess that less than 1% of CTYers would have the maturity to do so at that point. As an 18-year old RA fresh out of HS, do you think you could:

• Deal with a 16-year old who's blatantly breaking important rules, but expects you to let it slide since you two were hallmates a couple years ago.
• Maintain appropriate boundaries. Not only does this mean that you can't hang out with the 16-year olds in ways that you're probably used to, you also have to be very careful about the 16-year olds of the opposite sex who attempt to hit on you. Staff/student incidents have happened before, and they tend to get real ugly real fast.
• Be mature enough not to get yourself into any stupid situations. This includes underage drinking.

Unless you're dead certain on this, don't come back yet. Staying away would be the best thing you can do for the camp.

In any case, it's better to see how you fare as a freshman in college first. You've got to make sure that you can be responsible for yourself before even considering being responsible for others. You also have to learn that one final lesson that CTY is supposed to teach you- how to move past it.

-Dutchman

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I find the above fake statistic personally insulting. The RA experience, while different from the CTY experience, is still an experience in itself. I would go as far to say that most of the people who really want to come back as an RA would strive to do the best job possible, because they want the current campers to have a great an experience as they did back when they were eligible.

--Max W. 07:27, 26 August 2006 (MST)

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...but it takes a while to learn the difference between enhancing campers' experiences by letting them do anything they want (or worse, letting the ones you relate to the most do anything they want), and doing so by being a sane, reasonable adult who can look out for everyone's happiness and safety and otherwise do your job. I have to say even when I was several years into college and starting work at CTY, I had a hard time with that. In fact, nearly all the younger staff members I've known have had such problems, and the younger they start, the worse it can be. I think when you're trying to figure out how hard it is to be an RA, it's best to listen to the RA.

-The former TA.

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Definite "agreed" with the former TA above, and another "agreed" in having a hard time the first year. Striving to do the best job isn't the issue. The issue is first knowing what doing the best job possible entails, and then figuring out how to do that within appropriate boundaries. Enthusiasm without maturity causes far more damage than apathy.

The tough part is that people who think they're mature enough fall into two categories- those who really are, and those who really aren't. In the case of the latter, they're too immature to realize that they're immature. And therein lies the problem that's plagued RA staffs nearly every year.

I am of the opinion that nobody should go back to their "home" site for at least three years, and preferably four. It's damn tough to be appropriately detached with only one summer away from the site. Four years is often considered one "generation" of CTY kids, in that someone who was 13 when the RA was 16 will have aged out of the program and there will be very few kids around who were students when the RA was a student.

-Dutchman

On Leaving CTY by Matthew Belmonte

Matthew Belmonte was a CTY instructor who parted ways with CTY in 1998 due to "ideological differences". This is an essay he wrote about the issue. He made some rather dire predictions about CTY in this essay, many of which have thankfully not come true. However, Belmonte's leaving was a highly controversial topic that was much discussed among students and staff for years afterward. The essay is therefore of at least historical relevance. Matthew Belmonte now works at Duke's TIP program.