From Camp Invention to College: DoD Scholarship Recipient Jaime Girtain

As Jaime Girtain kicks off her senior year at The College of New Jersey (TCNJ) studying mechanical engineering, she reflects on her many summers gleaning STEM skills and knowledge at Camp Invention^®. A recipient of the Department of Defense (DoD) AEOP SMART Scholarship, Girtain attributes an important puzzle piece of her success to all her years attending and being involved with Camp Invention — including the ongoing dedication and commitment of her mother, Christine, who has been a Camp Director for 11 years and counting!

The SMART Scholarship is the largest education and workforce development initiative under the DoD STEM Program. Recipients gain hands-on experience at one of over 150 DoD facilities during their internships, and they apply this knowledge as early career professionals. Out of 10,000 annual applicants, a slim 5% received scholarships. Girtain earned a full scholarship for her senior year of college and will have a guaranteed position at the Philadelphia Naval Yard when she graduates.

“I'm so grateful,” Girtain said in an interview with the National Inventors Hall of Fame^®. “This achievement is a testament to really prioritizing my academics, getting involved in the science field and getting as much experience as I can. I feel like all the little things add up — all the years of hard work I've put into my unwavering passion for science.”

Learning and Growing at Camp Invention

Girtain first attended Camp Invention as a science-loving fifth grader. As she grew, she continued her involvement with Camp Invention in leadership roles, as a Leader-in-Training (LIT) for three years, and a Leadership Intern (LI) during all four years of high school. Finally, Girtain became a Camp Invention Instructor when she started college.

Some of her earliest memories of attending Camp Invention include the excitement around hand-picking invention materials, creating solar crickets that moved in the sun and engaging, project-based exploration. “You can't just get that anywhere else, and I think that's why kids keep coming back,” Girtain explained.

“I think the main traits and skills I gained from Camp Invention would be, one: creativity; two: teamwork; and three: just excitement about innovation,” she said. “It’s an eye-opening experience that makes kids want to learn even more [about] something they've never seen before. I think that's so important to bringing kids into the STEM field, just giving them opportunities that they wouldn't have anywhere else.”

Girtain also cites trial and error as an early Camp Invention experience that set the tone for persistence and benefited her as a child. She explains that at camp, “You are allowed to fail. And if you failed, then you would just improve your design. You would learn from failing. I feel like it was never a competition, where if you won, you won, and if you failed, you failed. You learned from other people's mistakes as well as your own, and then you improve your design.”

Building Leadership Skills

Noting the nostalgia of returning to Camp Invention in leadership roles, Girtain recalled that one of her favorite parts of being an LIT and an LI was seeing herself in the campers.

“I love working with children,” she said. “It kind of brought me back to myself when I was experiencing those new things for the first time, and I was just in awe.”

Taking pride in her evolving roles, Girtain has found it rewarding to see the impact of Camp Invention in real time. She explained that her priority as a camp leader was “allowing [campers] to get comfortable expressing their creativity and trying new things in a safe environment.” She added, “You can see how much, from the start of the week to the end of the week, the kid comes out of their shell and their whole personality shows.”

Encouraging the Next Generation

Looking ahead, Girtain shared, “I definitely want to pursue my master's, possibly in systems engineering. I would want to work my way up to management or be the engineering team lead.”

She added, “I would also want to do outreach with little kids. I love little kids, so that would be super cool. And as I get older and more experienced, I would just take my knowledge and spread it other places, because I feel like the more knowledge you can get, the more it is your responsibility to share that knowledge with others and help them get to the same place that you are.”

Sharing her experiences with the next generation of students, Girtain advised, “If you’re interested in something, don’t be scared to chase that passion. If you’re not as good as other kids, that shouldn’t be a deterrent from you studying something that you are really interested in. In science, I’m always intellectually stimulated. But you shouldn’t compare yourself to other people if you’re not good at first. You should just keep on trying. The fact that you want to keep learning is the most important part.”

Girtain’s advice says it all: “Find something that you're passionate about learning. Find the thing that you want to learn about, what you're interested in, and then just go with it.”

Making Camp Invention a Family Tradition

“She never stops making me proud – I have to say that,” Camp Invention Director Christine Girtain said about her daughter Jaime.

As an educator and parent, Christine Girtain has seen the way Camp Invention opens up new possibilities for kids, from early STEM concepts to career exploration. She reflected, “I think a lot of times for Jaime and Josh, my own kids, and also the kids that I teach, it's about flavors of ice cream. If they only know chocolate and vanilla, then that's the only thing they'll choose. Camp Invention creates all these other opportunities and shows them all these other flavors of ice cream as far as careers,” Christine explains.

Calling her daughter “the little engine that could,” Christine emphasizes the ways early exposure to STEM concepts and careers at Camp Invention set her daughter up for success. “Jaime got to learn about intellectual property, patents and trademarks, and it led to these conversations where we then talked about what an engineer would do, or we talked about what a patent lawyer would do, and how that was a job.”

We can’t wait to see what Jaime Girtain does next!

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