High school is a time in life where many students balance school and work. Students already juggle academics and often extracurriculars, like a sport or a club, so adding a job on top of that can seem daunting. Balancing school and work can be extremely stressful, but once students learn how to manage the ins and outs, working in highschool can earn students extra money and teach them important life skills.
Senior Madeline Swisher works at Dunkin’ as a barista and baker. She describes what she does at her job.
“I frost, glaze, and fill donuts as a baker, and as a barista I take patrons’ beverage and food orders and then prepare them, answering any questions or concerns they may have along the way. It’s also my responsibility to do my designated cleaning chores that rotate daily,” Swisher said.
She then gives advice to people starting jobs about how to balance doing school too based on her experiences.
“Balancing school and work can be hard at times, but I’d tell anyone starting to work to separate their school and work. Being focused on one while you’re doing the other will make everything so much harder and just elevate your stress level. Block out school while you’re at work so you can focus on doing your job, and vice versa,” Swisher said.
Drew Potter is also a senior and spends his weekends working at Pure Eats downtown. He explains what he does at Pure Eats.
“I mostly help with catering and delivering catering. So I am mostly in charge of packing the orders and delivering them out. I also work any events that I can. In the restaurant, I run food, take orders, and clean up,” Potter said.
Balancing school and work can be difficult especially during senior year. Potter explains how he accomplishes school.
“Since I work mostly on the weekends, I try to get most of my “hard” work done on Friday night. That way I leave the easy stuff to not take too long once I get home,” Potter said.
He then gives his advice to students just starting to work during the school year as it can be difficult to juggle school and work.
“My advice is to stay on top of your school work so that nothing becomes a burden. Always take your school stuff to work because it might be busy and you can be productive and not sitting on your phone,” Potter said.
Similarly, junior Thomas Jones, who works at Washington and Lee at Fieldside gives his advice about how to balance school and work.
“The best advice I have is don’t overload yourself. If you know the first semester won’t be as crazy, but still want to go to football games, plan to work earlier in the week or on weekends. Also if you know the second semester is going to get a lot crazier. Plan to work less or on Friday nights or weekends. The big takeaway is don’t put too much on yourself and end up stressing out because of it,” Jones said.
Whether students balance school by setting a schedule to do homework outside of work or bring their homework with them to complete during breaks, balancing the responsibilities and a job is doable. Working in highschool has many benefits. Working students learn time management, communication skills, punctuality, and responsibility among other things. All of these abilities are very important life skills that will benefit students for the rest of their lives.
