by Makena Reischauer
Staff Reporter
As his six o’clock alarm went off, Tyler Scherbal reached over to the nightstand and shut it off. He gets out of bed and begins getting ready. Once he arrives at Layton High School that day, it all begins. By the end of the day he has two papers and an assignment that will all have to be done that night. Finally school is over and he can go home and relax, or so you thought. He runs home and grabs his karate gear and heads for practice. That lasts for about an hour or so. By this time, it’s around 4. Now he heads to work for a 4:30 to 9:30 shift. Finally, he’s done at work and can head home. He grabs some dinner and begins his homework since this is the first time he’s had a free moment all day. All the work is done and he can head to bed. However, he hasn’t had any time to relax and wind down yet so he turns on a movie. At around midnight he closes his eyes and falls asleep.
For many high school students this is a typical day. Teens these days have got so much on their plate: getting ready for college, driving, SAT’s, and hundreds of other things they have to think about. There is already a growing rate of students that say they are stressed out almost everyday. This is just typical when your growing up though. You have stressors on a daily basis that you can’t get away from. However, as teens sometimes there is more than needed. For thousands of years, there has been a question about whether or not teens should have to work. Times have changed and there are a lot more things that we need to think about now instead of it just being the normal thing that teens do. For example, what about the kids like Scherbal who have karate practice or other after school activities to go to after school?
Another thing we have to take into consideration is if the student decides to work on their own. Everyone gets that feeling of wanting money to pay for the things they want but should it take priority over your studies? Whatever the reason is for getting a job, each of us should look at the effect it’s having. Graduating is the thing that will get you a good job but if a job is getting in the way now, what will eventually happen? For Scherbal, he chooses to work so that he can pay for things like going out with his friends, and doing the things he wants to do. He says “ I work so that I can, you know, pay for the things I want.” He also says “ sometimes I love it and sometimes I don’t.” So is it really worth all of his time and effort for a little bit of money that he will end up having to work for after high school? Scherbal is completely stressed out and tired but he has a system that sort of works.
For Scherbal, working has become a great thing in his life that can allow him to buy the things he wants and do the things he wants. A lot of students feel this way. It’s when your tired and had a long day or even week that working becomes strenuous. High school life can be really rough for some people and easy for others. For Ambrielle Powers, it has its ups and downs, “It’s hard having to go to school 6 hours a day, then coming home to more homework, and then barely having enough time to relax before having other responsibilities to take care of.”
A lot of us think that getting a job will help us grow up and prepare for the future better. While this is true, we also have to think about if it’s forcing children to grow up faster than they need to. Having a job can be a wonderful thing though. The biggest benefit being that you now might have some opportunities or advantages in your field when applying for a job after high school. It gives students a sense of freedom being that they can do it on their own without any help from a parent. So which is the right answer? How do we as a whole decide what the right answer is? Well we can’t necessarily make that decision. There are millions of reasons why people get jobs and millions of reasons why they don’t. The truth is that none of them are right or wrong. Each individual possesses the right to make that decision for themselves.
Whether you do decide to work during high school is definitely your choice. However it may not always be the best choice. Each individual is going through something, they have a life that they have to live. The world doesn’t always do things that we like, but we just have to figure it out. Some of us have a lot on our plate. Sometimes this is a lot in itself without the added stress of a job. This article was written not to persuade you one way or the other but as kind of a reminder to ask yourself how much can I handle? How much pressure can I take?
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