Whats a Job Doing to Students

As a student you're going to be in school for 7 - 8 hours a day, five days a week which would total to about 35 - 40 hours a week at school. That's the same amount of time you would clock in at a 9-5 job if you're not including the weekends. 

So as a highschool student who is at the age of being able to get a job, they have the opportunity to shoulder the burden of having a job on top of dealing with school. This varies from what job is selected and the employer, but students like Siani who have done this end up being tired after all that work. 

Siani said “Wouldn't wanna eat no dinner. Just come home and go do my little shower stuff and go to sleep. Like I wouldn't do anything else.”

The workload for a highschool student with 7 classes on average, isn't light so finding a way to squeeze that in the already tight schedule made by getting a job will be difficult. The stress from handling everything can be too much for students.

Siani said “So it was hard to balance out doing that and doing my schoolwork. Which what ultimately led me to quit the job because I couldn't handle doing all that.”

Jobs that have these types of hours are usually big companies or franchises that have a bad manager. They don’t worry if it's a student just the hours clocked in need to add up by the end of the day.

Siani said “But with jobs like my fast food job that was more difficult because the job was like it doesn't matter about your school schedule. You're going to find a way to work around it. So it was more difficult.”

From all this it would seem like getting a job while in high school isn’t the smartest idea if you wanna be able to keep up your grades or live a less stressful life right? There are some benefits to working though seen through different teachers and counselors like Ms. Olmedo.

Ms.Olmedo said “There are many benefits to having students, you know, be involved in a part time job.”...”So dealing with the public, you know, speaking skills, being patient, being organized, all of those things are super important skill sets to have that you might not always learn in the classroom.”

The only option for a job isn’t one in a large company. Some schools hold internships or programs for students who are looking for a suitable way to make some cash and gain the experience from working while still keeping school and life balanced.

Ms.Olmedo said “At other high schools programs like work ready, gives the students the opportunity to have a summer job.”...”Or it could be working at a nonprofit organization, helping out your community and working with little kids. So, there are different kinds of organizations that provide you that type of experience and pay you for it.”

Siani said “The other jobs were like through programs or they were internships. So it wasn't like I was on a schedule or anything. It was more flexible because they understand your students.”

The main issue of working as a student would be finding the time to handle all that. Since there are programs that can go around the hours that are needed to be suitable for you then that makes that one problem disappear.

Ms. Olmedo said “So having a part time job is an extremely valid and important experience for a high school student.”