By Austin Henry

It is not uncommon for many students to pick up an afterschool job in order to make a few bucks. The reality of this seems is incredibly long days consisting of seven hours of school, followed by another five hours of work. That ends up being a 12-hour day which can sometimes be a lot for a functioning adult. So how do kids who are between 14-18 even dream of handling this? 

Junior Lyla Fagan, who has spent most of her time in high school working a part-time job, works 4-6 hours after school on weekdays. While available free hours often compete with each other, according to Fagan, being busy actually works to her advantage.

“It [working] doesn’t affect me much,” Fagan said. “If anything, I feel more productive by the end of the week when I have all of my work done and I made some money.”

Junior Kate Gaspa, sings a similar tune as Lyla, however, juggling both commitments can often be challenging.

“It [working] gives me something to do when I am bored,” Gaspa said. “But it can be very stressful getting days off of work for school-related stuff”. 

The binding nature of a job can be hard for a high schooler, especially because this is a time of your life when change is happening all the time. 

Balancing sports, clubs, and other activities on top of this can be difficult as well especially because sports schedules aren’t always super consistent and can sometimes be a dart board of different times and days. This makes it difficult to work a job that has very strict hours and days that you need to be working.  As Fagan said “it’s all about managing your time correctly”. 

With all of this combined, sophmore Brendan Fitzsimmons says struggles finding time to spend with family and friends with other obligations taking up so many hours in the week.

“I feel like working and going to school makes it difficult to hang out with friends and family,” Fitzsimmons said.

Although, Fitzsimmons’ answer was very decisive when asked if all the juggling is worth it.

“Yes, because working gives me experience that I’ll need in the future, and money,” Fitzsimmons said. 

Lack of money appears to be the main motivator for taking on a job for high school students, whether they’re spending money on their family, college, or even just a movie with friends, expenses all add up quickly. 

Do you think that high school students should work? Is it valuable experience or should kids be left to play? 

That is this month’s View from the School on the Hill!