Students’ Jobs Affect School Work
At Arrowhead High School, many students have jobs. According to the Washington Times, 16 percent of high school students have some type of job outside of school.
Diya Ramanathan, a senior at Arrowhead says, “I work at Fotodyne Inc and I like it because it’s interesting and I don’t really ever get bored, but I work everyday after school, so I don’t really have a lot of time to get my homework done. I like having a job for the money, but it does take up a lot of time, which sucks.”
Fotodyne is a molecular biology lab, and as a lab assistant, Ramanathan produces and manipulates DNA and ships it to high schools and universities in kits.
According to ascd.org, students who work longer hours have lower levels of academic achievement. They also participate in fewer extracurricular activities, leadership activities, and have lower career aspirations.
Among the Arrowhead students that were surveyed, more than half of the students said that having a job didn’t negatively affect them how ascd.org said how students were affected.
However, it also states that about 80% of all employed high school students save their earnings and put towards future education plans.
Julia Schiller, a senior at Arrowhead says, “I love my job, but after being in school and then having to work I’m always tired and I never get enough sleep. It just makes me more stressed out and like a lot harder to get all of my homework done and to study, but it is a good experience.”
According to bigfuture.collegeboard.org, working part time during high school allows you to earn money as well as challenges you and allows you to learn new things about yourself.
They also have advice on how to balance school and a job. They suggest planning ahead to make time for your job and getting school work done. They suggest starting out working only a few hours a week, until you are comfortable working more hours, while being able to get school work done.
Out of the 25 Arrowhead students surveyed, 17 of them had part time jobs.
Of the students surveyed, 14 of them also took part in extracurricular activities either in clubs or sports. They all agreed that having a job does take time away from school work, but it is possible to have both.
