It was the summer of 2013, when two rising high school seniors set out for Penn State’s College of Communications summer camp with the hopes of gaining some valuable experience. Little did they know, the six-day camp would help shape the next five years of their lives.
“It turned out to be one of the greatest decisions I ever made,” said Mike D’Avella. “That was one of the coolest opportunities I had in my life, especially doing something I’m really interested in and having kids like me who want to be interested in the field of journalism.”
Fast forward to October 2015. It’s a Monday afternoon, and sophomores D’Avella, from West Chester, Pennsylvania, and Jack Milewski, from Springfield, Virginia, are in a computer lab at the ComRadio studio at Innovation Park, side-by-side, of course. On Wednesday afternoons, the two campers-turned-college-roommates can be found debating sports on their ComRadio talk show “The K-Zone.”
In the evenings, if there isn’t a floor hockey game going on (the two play on a team together twice a week) or some other extracurricular activity, D’Avella and Milewski are probably in their apartment at The Meridian still arguing about sports, or outside playing sports, which they both agree they bond over.
The unexpected friendship started at the multimedia journalism camp following their junior years of high school. The first interaction between the two was a discussion about sports -- specifically, baseball. D’Avella is a Phillies fan, while Milewski favors the Yankees. After spending time at camp together, the two decided to room together freshman year.
“It turned out to be a really good decision because we’re now best friends,” said D’Avella.
They extended that to this year and have already signed paperwork to live together again next year -- despite Milewski being admittedly messier than D’Avella, who is the cleaner and decorator.
“It’s not that Jack is the dirty one anymore because our other roommate Morgan is really dirty,” said D’Avella. “Our apartment is kind of suffering because I’m not there as much anymore to clean it.”
But D’Avella and Milewski didn’t only form relationships with each other at the 2013 summer camp. According to the two, while it admittedly took some time for all of the campers to mesh, once they clicked, they made relationships with multiple campers that lasted more than just that week.
By the time the group attended the State College Spikes minor league baseball game on the second night of camp, they had received hands-on experience and met reporters. The campers also began a bond that would continue into their college careers.
“It was probably the night that everyone really got as close as they did for the rest of the camp because we were all just in an environment that we were comfortable with, so we got to see the true side of everyone’s personalities,” said Milewksi. “I think that was really cool how everything seemed to mesh and flow on that night.”
Recently, D’Avella had a birthday and received texts from numerous people he had attended camp with -- even the ones that he hasn’t seen since then.
The camp not only provided the two hands-on opportunities and the chance to work alongside professors and journalism professionals, it also helped to solidify their choices to attend Penn State. D’Avella is a first-generation Penn Stater, while Milewski’s father is a Penn State graduate.
“I knew on paper that (Penn State) was a good journalism school,” said Milewski. “Then, getting that first-hand acknowledgement from people that had gone through the journalism program, whether it be PR or print, or there was one broadcast counselor there as well. They all just gave ringing endorsements of not only the opportunities you got, but also the help from the College of Communications staff and the professors. You get that sense in the camp, just how willing everyone was to devote their time to kids who may or may not even be coming to Penn State. They were just trying to develop young journalists and get them on the right path.
“Then, I think also the deciding factor was being up here for a week and kind of thinking this is what I could be, this is a place I could be living for the next four years and being totally comfortable with that fact and not having any doubts that I would not like it up here when I actually came to college.”
The experience meant so much to them that they decided to help out as camp counselors after their freshman year, and are planning on doing it again next summer. Penn State's College of Communications camps for 2016 are scheduled July 10-15 on the University Park camps. Information may be found at comm.psu.edu/camps online.
“One of the reasons I decided to be a counselor was because I wanted to give to the kids what I got from my counselors in the experience,” said Milewski, who still touches base with one of his counselors. “I wanted to give that back to the campers who were coming out this year and just make them love journalism and love whatever they wanted to go into.
“It’s just kind of giving them the best steps to move forward and make their decisions in their college careers.”
Moving forward, both of them have aspirations in sports. Milewski, who fell in love with hockey while watching the Rangers with his dad at an early age, wants to be an NHL play-by-play announcer. D’Avella has completed an internship with the Phillies, and also wouldn’t be opposed to a music career someday. He plays the drums, guitar and ukulele and, according to Milewski, can even sing.