Hey Coyotes! During March, we decided to do research on whether having a job affects students’ academic performance. We know that a lot of students in high school have a job and at times, it can get hard for them to keep up with their school work and work schedules. In cases where students work 5 hours after school, getting homework assignments done can be difficult because of time.
Having a job and attending school may not always be an issue. An article published in Walden University says that having a job while being in high school can “teach the relationship between earnings and education.” This means that to earn good money, an education is essential. The article also makes a point on how having a job can also help students stay out of trouble and states that “Summer jobs have been shown to decrease incidents of violence by disadvantaged youth by 43%.” This shows that being employed while in high school not only teaches students the importance of how money comes from a good education but also helps reduce trouble among students.
While there are pros to having a job while being in high school, there are also some disadvantages that come with it. We found in the same article that working while learning can hurt students’ academic performance. The article says that “While the correlation between working and grades is not easy to measure, researchers have learned that students who work upward of 20 hours a week suffer from reduced academic performance.” In other words, working plenty of hours during the week can cause students to be stressed and do badly in school.
Most of the time, it is proven that students with jobs tend to do worse than students who focus on school rather than working. For example, an article published on PMC states that “The majority of secondary students in the United States are employed at some point during the school year, and those students who work long hours tend to do worse in school than those who work less intensively… students who work ‘intensively’ (over 20 hours per week) devote fewer hours to homework and extracurricular activities, have higher absenteeism, achieve lower grade point averages and standardized test scores, and have lower rates of high school graduation.” This shows that working long hours takes the time that students could put towards homework time, which then leads to a bad academic performance.
Overall, we found that there are mixed results of the academic performance of those students who are employed. Some students apply skills they’ve learned in school to improve their work performance, some will better their time management so that their work schedule does not interfere with their school life, while others only stress and do worse in school.
After researching the negative and positive effects of working while being in high school, we decided to go around campus interviewing students who are employed and get their personal experiences with keeping up with academics and work.
Crystal Zavala started off by asking Jossilyn Regalado, “How do you manage having a job and school?”
Jossilyn says “I manage it by creating a schedule and staying organized, being on top of the deadlines of assignments and completing them before work.”
Crystal then asked, “Does having a job affect you academically?”
Jossilyn says, “Sometimes I do face challenges when my work schedule conflicts with my homework time, and it makes me have long nights, but I manage to get back on track.”
Jossilyn’s response lets us know and learn that sometimes keeping up with school and work can get to her, but overall, she knows how to make a comeback.
Moving forward, Alexis Villa interviews student Aiden Sandoval, starting off by asking, “How do you manage having a job and school?”
Aiden says, “After I get out of school, I do homework, and then after homework, I do my job.”
Alexis then asked, “Do you think having a job can affect you academically?”
Aiden says, “For me, it kinda does, but you know, getting money is what we need right now, and academically, I think I could still do my work, but it’s just gonna build up.”
With the honesty from Aiden, we see that it is challenging to complete school work when having a job but even then, he still manages to make some time to do homework.
Finally, Leslie Ramirez interviewed student Damian Garcia, starting with the question, “How do you manage having a job and school?”
Damian says “I manage it just by focusing when I have free time to do school work and then when I go to work just stay focused on work.
Leslie then asked, “Do you think having a job affects you academically?”
Damian says, “I personally do not have any correlation with them because when I have free time, I just focus on academics.”
Damian’s response helps us see how he separates his job from school so that he can be employed while still performing well in his classes.
After hearing the different sides of the students here at Buena Park High School, we think that having a job while in high school goes back to time management, and it also really depends on the student. Knowing how to manage your time wisely along with your work schedule can go a long way and help to ensure that being employed does not interfere with academics. Applying skills that are learned in school to your work life can lead to the pros of having a job while still attending high school.
Although it can get stressful at times, students should learn and be able to keep their work life and school life separate so that they don’t affect each other. Especially to those who are juniors and seniors and are so close to finishing up high school. Keeping up with a job while still performing well in school can help prepare students for the real world where they’d be working and probably attending college. College isn’t like high school, where you can just miss a class because you slept in and then expect to catch back up right away. Missing just one lesson can harm your grade so much in college and it can be very difficult to get it back up, which is why balancing out school and a job is a very crucial skill.
Being able to work a job in high school is important and there are many different reasons as to why high school students get jobs. Some students get jobs to help out their families financially, some do it to have money of their own, and some students get jobs to save up for things such as cars and school. Having a job for any of the things listed only helps teach students important responsibilities and in the long run, it gets them prepared for the next chapter of their lives. Being independent is a big step that comes after high school because students become adults and are seen as adults, so having a job during high school can definitely help prepare for that.
Thank you, Coyotes! We hope that you all are able to get a takeaway from this article and see the mixed results and or perspectives from employed students!
Works Cited:
