Not a job for everyone... - Anonymous employee Exploration Summer Programs Employee Review

Working with middle school aged students is a great time, You are guided by staff managing in all facets of your job, making it very comfortable.

Explo becomes your life, for better or for worse. Hours are LONG.

Student advisors got a lot more time off than most camp counselors (1 hour off on weekends, and every other morning/night off during the week). The pay was also great compared to most camp counselor-type jobs. It was great to be an advisor to funny and sweet middle schoolers who mostly really enjoyed Explo! Finally, likely as a result of the poor administration, Student Advisors became close to and relied on each other for professional and emotional support.

The 3-day training did not prepare Student Advisors for even the most mundane parts of the job, and it became a joke among students that the Student Advisors did not know what was going on. (There also wasn't a single returning student advisor, which made it harder to adjust to the job.) During the training, there was no medical or DEI training, which I would expect when working with children. The closest thing was an introduction to the nursing staff and an overview of neurodevelopmental and mental health disorders that just promoted stereotypes about conditions like autism and anxiety. The program is going through a lot of changes and has majorly cut back on how many administrators there are, so admin was stretched very thin. There were constant problems with programming and scheduling, and a lot of disorganization more broadly. While I thought the Office of Teaching and Learning managed the best with their limited staff and resources, there was very little support and oversight given to instructors. The work culture was very toxic, with admin (especially from the Office of Student Life) constantly getting into power struggles with and micromanaging Student Advisors. Admin did not get to know or support Student Advisors, and there weren't any avenues for us to give feedback to the admin. There should have been anonymous surveys for us to voice our concerns in such a challenging work environment. Finally, there was a problematic clause in the employment contract that sounded like they were just asking us to be flexible while working with kids, but it really meant they could change our job description at any given moment, which they did. Many student advisors worked in the main/programming office for the majority of the day rather than with children, as they expected.