Once entering high school, that’s when everything starts to matter. You start growing up as a person and slowly proceed to open that door of adulthood. You’re at that age where you are eligible to start looking for jobs. But is it the right time to be working as a student? Research shows that there are both pros and cons when it comes to working during high school. It has been said that teenagers would have the opportunity to learn about finances and money management.  Students would be able to learn how to save money, create a budget, and contribute to certain expenses. On the other hand, having a job can hold down the student’s schoolwork. Working can become very stressful and distracting which will revolve around suffering in their academics. It could also affect their hours of sleep with the long shifts and homework and as we know,  teenagers should get an average of 8-10 hours of sleep.  

I got the chance to interview 3 working students of Renton High School. One senior, one Junior, and one sophomore, and asked them questions to talk about their experience and  perspectives of how working affects their high school life and have asked them, “Ever since they have found a job, how has working impacted their school life?” Senior, Nesselah Ytac, stated that “it was a lot harder because I couldn’t maintain sports, school, and work at one time.” Coming from Sophomore, Jeremiah Steel, also saying something very similar. He had responded with, “Since I found a job it’s made my school life a bit more exhausting but also hasn’t made it any harder” Junior, Hannah Fontanos replied with, “ Ever since I got a job, I’ve had to juggle prioritizing my job and school/clubs/school events. I’ve had to skip out on some school events in  order to go to my job.” As research said in the beginning, it’s considered that it can be a struggle at school once you are a working student due to extracurriculars, events, and school work overall and to jumble all of them into one and manage to do.  

It may be very exhausting to be working while having to prioritize school work, but out of your shift from working, you’ll be able to learn something new and could also improve as a  person. Both Nesselah Ytac and Jeremiah Steel stated how they’ve learned how to deal with people when it comes to customer service and how it could help them be more social. On the other hand, Hannah replied, “I’ve learned how important it is to prioritize work/social/school altogether. I’ve had to learn which sacrifices to make to maintain all 3.” So we can see that working can help a lot relating to guest services and learning how to communicate but most importantly how you need to learn how prioritizing your work is the most important thing and you get to learn how to manage your time.  

As we have mentioned how you would have to prioritize your schoolwork while working, you may have wondered how they could balance both at the same time. I was also curious, so I asked: How do you balance your work life with your school life? All 3 of them responded differently since they have their own ways. Starting with Jeremiah, he stated that he would make sure he’ll get breaks and rest when he needs it. He also makes sure work doesn’t get in the way of school. Junior, Hannah, responded with how she had to cut out some of her free time on the weekends and had to stay up late at night. Senior, Nesselah said, “so on the weekdays, I take care of practice and schoolwork and on the weekends that’s when I plan to work. I usually take the morning shift so I can take care of my school work as well towards the end of the day” So yes, time management is really important when it comes to working students to prioritize their work and school work at the same time. At the same time, it could also benefit us no matter what difficulties we would have to go through.  

Is working while being a student worth it? Well as you see there can be benefits from working. Junior, Hannah Fontanos said, “It’s helped me gain experience on how to balance my responsibilities. I’ve also learned the importance of saving up money and how to budget for my lifestyle” Sophomore, Jeremiah Steel, answered with, “ It helps me feel more prepared for when  I’m an adult and helps me learn things I’ll need later” Saying something similar, Nesselah Ytac said, “It’s helped me gain experience on how to balance my responsibilities. I’ve also learned the  importance of saving up money and how to budget for my lifestyle.” There can be many ways how working and school benefits us. It could benefit from slowly having that experience of getting a job and a step-by-step of how adulthood is like. Not only that, it can also benefit us on finances and how to save up money. 

Closing this interview up with these students, Everybody always has their own opinion as a working student since not everyone has the same job. With this last question, I’ve asked the following: What’d you think at first when you got a job as a student. At first Nesselah said that it was going to be hard to balance due to school already being overwhelming itself. Junior,  Hannah, responded with, “I’ve thought about how I can use the money for my job and how I can improve my social life. I also thought about how I need to change my schedules in order to have a balanced work/school/social life” and lastly, sophomore Jeremiah said that he thought it was a  lot but he thought it was also fun to be able to work.  

We can conclude that working as a teenager while trying to handle school work at the same time is a step harder. But that is also part of life because as we are growing up, the more we learn, the more mature we get, and take little steps into becoming an adult. For those who want to start working, I would advise you guys to start prioritizing instead of procrastinating. 

Sources:

Hannah Fontanos, Junior, Grade 11

Jeremiah Steel, Sophomore, Grade 10  

Nesselah Ytac, Senior, Grade 12