Many of us in high school have lots of things going on in our lives besides school, and having a job is fairly common especially among junior and seniors. For most high schoolers, having a job is all about the money, especially as they start driving and needing money for gas. Having a car opens up lots of new doors for students, but also end up costing a lot of money as you drive around, go out to eat a lot, and end up doing more things that are not free.

An issue often brought up with having a job during high school is not having the time to properly focus on school or get enough sleep. Senior Caroline Freer experiences what it’s like to work during the school year first hand, as she works 16 hours a week at Cold Stone Creamery and Carters. Freer says that she “definitely has less time for homework and studying and sleep, sometimes work gets in the way of social things.” There are laws in place that are supposed to prevent minors from working too much or getting abused by their place of work, but not all places follow those laws exactly and not all students care. The desire to earn money often over rules the need for sleep and doing school work especially later along in high school, with lots of juniors and seniors starting to work as many days as possible to bring in all the money they can. Senior Jack Higgins says “I know some juniors and seniors who work 5-6 plus hours everyday and still have full time school at Issaquah High.” Working 30-40 hours a week for someone in high school is a very large amount of time, especially if you factor in all the school work given by teachers in addition to trying to get seven hours of sleep each night, which is the average amount of sleep a high schooler gets according to Nationwide Children’s.

Another issue that usually gets talked about with working in high school is the added stress on high schoolers who already have to think about six classes in school, a social life, and what their plans are for the future. While junior Nihal Sathi might not have a job now due to playing high school soccer everyday, he used to work for his uncle and knows that “with school work and a job to do, people tend to stress a lot, and it can get really hard.” But the added stress could also help prepare teenagers for the stresses of the real world, when you have to live off your own salary and keep a good performance up at work always or risk getting fired. Freshman Tanner Ross works as a soccer referee most weekends and feels that having a job is good for students so they can “save up money for the future and practice having a job with lots of responsibilities and stresses for later in life.” The real world with taxes galore and a nine to five job will always be accompanied with a great number of stressors, so getting a small taste of that stress could be beneficial for the future.

From the Washington post, in 2016 only 16 percent of high schoolers held jobs, which is really low, even with all the negatives to having a job there’s still enough positives to where it would make sense if more students were working. Even with the added stress and decreased amount of time, earning money and getting job experience for a resume would be a good thing for many students, especially seniors going off to college soon. Part of what might make the amount of high schoolers with jobs so low is the fact that most places of work require that you be at least 16 to work there, which makes it hard for freshman and sophomores to find places where they can work. Sophomore Eli Lazar believes that this age restriction is a good things, and having just turned 16 recently himself, he knows that “you got to make sure you’re ready for the responsibilities of a job.” Even though most places require you to be at least 16 to work there, when you’re 18 new opportunities can open up as being an adult allows you to be a cook in most restaurants, which pays more than working in the front as a cashier, waiter, or host.

Most high schoolers when they get their first job start off with minimum wage, which as of 2019 in Washington is 12 dollars and hour, which compared to the whole of the U.S. is really high, as some states on the east coast have theirs even below ten dollars an hour. Despite our minimum wage being so high, senior Kate Wilkinson still thinks that “[the minimum wage] isn’t high enough for those trying to support themselves independently, but for high schoolers not living on their own it’s definitely reasonable.” How much money high schoolers make however, more comes down to the amount of hours they are willing to work while still trying to manage school, rather than just the high wages themselves.

Overall having a job in high school makes the high school experience more complicated and stressful, but the added work experience and feel for real responsibility of a job as well as having more money to play around with, makes the decision of getting a job or not a tough one for many students.