Learning to balance work, school

Illustration+by+Zayda+Birkel

Illustration by Zayda Birkel

As students in high school grow older, they start taking more responsibility as in getting a job, getting their license, buying a car, and start paying for bills.

Around the junior and senior year, students are old enough to get a part time job and start earning minimum wage for the time taken away for that job. Working and going to high school applies pressure on students to get good grades and keeping a positive attitude for the entire day.

Having a job and going to school puts stress on a student that is not needed. Students get pressured to get a job at 16, to start paying for a car, a phone bill, and gas, to really get an idea what it’s like to be an adult.

As the students get older, they begin to get ready to graduate and possibly go full time in work.

Senior year is the time where everything sums up into one moment and says that they are officially in adulthood. It can be an emotional time for seniors knowing that they are no longer going to school the next year like they have been for the past 12 years.

In my personal opinion, getting a job and going to school full time is exhausting for students, especially if there are late night shifts. That kind of responsibility should not be pushed on teenagers at a young age because of the dedication they have to put into school to have good colleges ask for their time and to have a good college career.

According to the American Psychological Association, teenagers experience stress levels that are twice as high than the stress levels experienced by adults. The reason for the excessive stress is school.

Waking up early in the morning, going to class for eight hours a day, doing extra curricular activities, participating in sports, and having a paying job can put a lot of stress on a teen.

In Nebraska, teenagers can not have a job until the age of 16 which will be a part time job getting paid minimum wage. As they get older, they can work more hours and get paid more than minimum wage.

As a senior, work and school can be stressful because of the hours and time taken away from being a young adult. There’s not much time to do a lot, which needs to be used wisely, especially for school and needing to get stuff done for classes to graduate with the rest of the class.

In order to keep that workload certain, students have to learn how to time manage so they are able to have breathing space to take care of themselves as well as being able to get their work load done. They need to make sure to ask for certain shifts, get rid of classes that are not needed as a senior, or have late start or early out.