Coming home from school Saraí Rojo now has one hour before heading to her job. Spending her time doing homework, letting her dogs out and making sure that they are fed. Until she gets ready for her 5-9 shift.
“I was wanting to get a job all summer, but I never really found a job that interests me,” Rojo said. “My parents wanted me to get a job and they said ‘Once you start driving you need to have that responsibility [of working]’.”
Rojo became employed one week before school started this year. She learned how to balance school and work life.
“I work almost every day of the week and usually get home super late. I have to stay up doing my homework,” Rojo said. “Time management is my main problem. This job has definitely tested my limits and it’s making me realize I can balance all these things and I can do all this.”
Almost 27.5% of high school students have a job. While jobs are straining, studies from Walden University show it can teach the value of money and help build confidence.
“I know obviously I’m not the first person in the world to be balancing this much school and work, with everything I’m trying to balance I feel like I’m not trying,” Rojo said. “It’s definitely something that I have not mastered and I haven’t been able to balance it perfectly yet. Hopefully, throughout the school year, I gain more skills and tips and tricks that are going to help benefit me.”
Losing time from their jobs, working students adapt and find ways to compensate. Working at Chick-Fil-A for 6 months Senior Christian Gardener, and has found new ways to better manage his time.
“Try to make more time for yourself, with a job there’s a lot of stuff I miss out on.” Gardner said. “If you want to get a job, get something that’s a little bit more flexible, do something where you can work at your own time.”
In 2020, over 30% of teens had summer jobs. However, the number declines to 27.5% when school starts, as students don’t have enough time for a job during school. Junior Abbigayle Gibson worked for most of the summer but cut down her hours when school began.
“During the summer, I missed out on a lot of hanging out with my friends [from] having to work. Having a job and school is not for everybody,” Gibson said. “Value your mental health over work, because I know both school and work can be stressful at the same time.”
Student stress is an increasing problem in America. When managing stress, time management becomes a major factor. It is important to find a healthy workplace and that begins with a good manager. Phillip Joy manages Chick-fil-A Walnut Creek.
“I hire students because a lot of times when I was at that age, nobody would give me a chance. So for me, it’s about giving kids a chance to get their foot in the door and get some experience,” Joy said. “We have enough students that we hired our students where we can work around the schedules.”
Starting work as a high school student, Joy has a lot of sympathy for student workers. Joy became manager 10 months ago and tries to accommodate his workers as best he can.
“Students don’t make bad workers, poorly trained employees make bad workers. The more a student works, the better they get at time management, especially in this industry,” Joy said. “Working teaches students respect for people that they don’t know, humility with, situations that they’re not comfortable with, the ability to reason and figure things out.”
Maintaining responsibility requires a lot of time and effort. When considering getting a job students need to make sure they can handle it.
“Do not overwork yourself, because you will be burnt out. You really need to focus on fixing time for your studies, your school work, your social life, and for yourself also. It’s just really hard to manage four of those things.” Rojo said. “If you were a person that stresses a lot or struggles with time management and school, I would not add on top of your workload.”
