Ratering works to add fun to campers’ experience

Alongside a plethora of academic opportunities available during MIPA week comes a wide variety of interactive activities. During this week, students can participate in activities ranging from playing volleyball to making bath bombs to participating in yoga. The activities, coordinated by Michele Ratering, take place every day during recreational time both within the Wilson Hall complex and across campus. 

Ratering said she finds that pulling ideas from her childhood experiences at camp really helps her to come up with fun recreational events for campers. 

“As a kid I went to a really traditional summer camp and I loved it,” Ratering said. “Now, I feel like activities are really plugged in. They always have devices and technology, which is great, but I think it is fun to do traditional stuff like friendship bracelets and weird science experiments.” 

For some, these events have a deeper meaning than simply making crafts. For Broadcast Bootcamp member Jessica LaRoy, interacting with others was a big appeal to participating in these activities. 

“The activities allow me to interact with new people from different schools and spend quality time with my friends from my publication,” LaRoy said. “I came to camp to learn, but meeting people from different schools and being able to talk about the differences in our publications really gave me a new insight on things we could potentially work on in our own newspaper.”