I think I am sending my youngest to an overnight programming class at iD Tech at UC Irvine this summer!
I’m so nervous about it. My daughter is now 12 but we sent her to a Girl Scout (Camp Scherman) summer camp when she was going into 3rd grade. It was such a great experience for her but she had some health problems that cropped up a few weeks after, and she didn’t attend for another 3 years because she was nervous about it.
Because of that, my son (who will be 10 this summer and going into 5th grade) is finally getting pushed out the door for overnight summer camp two years later than her. He has a technical brain and we want to get him involved in programming so we’ve been talking about it for two years. We did our private school lego robotics class, and our city enrolled lego engineering summer day camp and he had a blast at both of them but we wanted something more. But I’ve been eying the hardcore javascript programming class at iD Tech. They have a ton of classes on coding, game development, design, and robotics.
I’ve heard friends talk about the classes over the years. I emailed a few and got good reviews back. One said she had sent her kids the last 3 years and they were going again this summer! I looked at all the Yelp reviews, which were a bit mixed. I looked at the online summer camp reviews. I checked out their Facebook and Instagram pages.
I didn’t see any DETAILS though. I NEED DETAILS.
On the site, they had a neat chat feature so I chatted and gave my info. Jason Chavez, their SoCal Dedicated Camp Specialist, gave me a call back a few hours later. He asked me what questions I had.. but my problem was that I didn’t KNOW the questions to ask. I just wanted information.
He went over the whole program with me. Here are a few details if you have been searching yourself!
- Get up in the morning around 730, get ready. Breakfast in the campus dining hall.
- Day campers – from 9-5.
- In the labs for a few hours.
- Outside running around for another bit.
After day camp is over, a few activities until dinner.
- The meal is in the campus dining hall.
- Then outdoor activities.
Then after that it’s about fun. This is where it sounded fantastic. They organize a bunch of activities. They have gaming tournaments, movie nights, karaoke, and talent shows. The staff will come up with those activities. Lights out is at 10pm every day.
Rooms are double rooms. Grouped same ages. Separate the boys from the girls in wings. Adult staff on the same floor. Staff are next to emergency and fire escapes. They decorate their doors so the students know where to go. If you go with buddies, they can group and room them together if friends want to sign up together. Easy to do from their end.
Average of 8 students per instructor. No nurse, but the Dir and staff are all CPR certified and have extensive training.
So even though I wanted a minute by minute itinerary, this was pretty good information that made me feel better. Then I had to convince the husband! He was a harder sell but we signed up my kiddo for Coding and Engineering for one week this summer.
It’s SO expensive. I’m desperately scared he’s going to sit there and not have help, and have it be a super boring class. Or cry himself to sleep at night. Or not make any friends.
<Deep breaths>
But I’m a big proponent of overnight summer camps. I want my kids to be a little out of their element. I want them to miss home a bit. To be forced to meet new people and learn new things. I’m so excited for the adventure he is going to have. I feel a little bit bad that it’s being tied to electronics all week but the kid doesn’t get much screen time during the week, so I’m okay with it. Maybe next year we will include a camp in the wilderness like we do with my daughter.
I’m also excited that I signed both kids up for a week-long adventure away on the exact same week. Party time for parents, here we come!
I’ll let you know how it goes. (The summer camps, not my alone time! ha!)
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