Southern Adventist University
This summer, Southern Adventist University welcomed 94 high-school-aged students to the school’s sixth annual Academic Summer Camp.
The camp offered eight different areas of interest that students could choose from — automotive repair, biology, computing, film, journalism, outdoor leadership, photography, and vegetarian culinary arts. Each of these camps offered hands-on activities to help students learn more about their selected area of interest.
Students in the vegetarian culinary arts camp were able to make several dishes, including mango chia pudding, red pepper hummus, and guacamole for the nachos they also made.
Samson, a 15-year-old-camper, said he has been passionate about cooking for years but took the class to become a better cook. Samson wants to pursue vegetarian culinary arts at Southern in the future.
While many campers were local, some campers traveled from different states and even countries to attend the camp.
Abigail, a photography camper from Guam, said the photography camp was really interesting, partially because of the instructor, Stephen Ruf, a photography professor at Southern. Abigail said Ruf is extremely knowledgeable and experienced in photography. The photography campers learned skills such as lighting, photographing objects in motion, and portrait and nature photography. Some of these photos were showcased in front of all students at the end of the camp.
Computing campers also showcased the websites which they worked on using HTML and CSS programming languages.
Madison, a computing camper, said she learned a lot during the camp and had fun making web pages look “really pretty.”
“There’s been a lot of information …. I’ve learned a lot of abbreviations that I had never heard before and the order you put things in …. It’s really cool,” said Madison.
While computing students worked on writing with code, journalism campers worked on writing articles. The journalism camp was designed so students got detailed glimpses at life as a journalist through interactive games, writing assignments, and a tour of a local printing press and radio station.
“I actually wasn’t super interested in the journalism camp at first, but after attending the camp, I enjoyed it a lot more than I thought I would,” said Sarah, a journalism camper who attended a different camp area last year.
Preston was also a return camper, attending the automotive camp both this year and last.
“I came back to do the same camp again because I enjoyed it so much last year,” said Preston.
Preston said the class’s instructors helped prepare automotive campers well so they could pursue their possible future careers in auto mechanics.
Each camp included the same amount of in-class instruction time as a one credit college class, all taught in only 2 1/2 days.
Outside of instruction time, students were able to enjoy meals together, tour Southern’s campus, and participate in various activities in the Bietz Center for Student Life.
The center offered students activities like a two-story slide, a large chess set, table tennis, video games, and more. The opportunity to make friendships and participate in these types of activities is one reason some campers hope to attend again next year.
According to Anna Lewis, a Southern student ambassador and Summer Academic Camp helper, preparations for next year’s camp are already in the works, as the team begins planning a year in advance.
The team said next year they hope to see even more camp areas available for campers to choose from.
Southern Union | August 2023
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