During this time of the year, students start worrying about SOLs, final exams and IB exams. Time is devoted to studying and reviewing. This is something we prepare for throughout the year. A lot can happen in a single school day for some students. When the last bell rings, many students run out the school to go home, relax and start homework. However, this isn’t the case for all students.

There are the athlete students who rush to change for practice. Others run to their theater rehearsal, jazz ensemble practice, attend a club meeting or tutor. Some IB candidates hussle to get to their after school Theory Of Knowledge class.

There’s no time for anything these days.

How can their be time to juggle a part-time job?

Of course, there are students who have developed well-rounded time management skills. Thus, enabling them to have a job on the weekends or even after school.

Time is limited and to have a job, there must be some sort of sacrifice.

If a part-time worker is also an athlete, there are moments where they have to miss either work or practice. A life of an athlete is time-consuming as is. Some athletes are exhausted after practice or a long game, but they can’t rest. There’s still homework and studying to be done. To accomplish this, there’s a sacrifice of sleep in order to stay late to complete school tasks.

A part-timer could work after school and set time for assignments during the weekend. Although, no matter what, time is sacrificed.

This alludes to being a member of a club or any extracurricular activities. There are only so many meetings one can miss. We are teens who can’t be two places at once. It’s important that school always remains a priority, not a job.

High school students should only get jobs if they have sturdy time management skill. The reality is that there are people who have difficulty balancing school work with extracurricular activities. That’s normal because in high school we are still learning work ethics, collaborative skills, time and financial management and other skills that we will use in the future.

An appropriate time to get a job is in college when we are at a stable state. In college there is more freedom and time.

Summer is also an appropriate time to have a job or internship that is in one’s desirable field of interest.

In high school our focus should be on achieving good grades, graduating, going to college and devoting time necessary to school activities to reach these goals. Money is a necessity in life, but our studies and future is above that.