In high school, many students spend some of their free time doing a variety of things. One of those things can include having a job and going to work. There are of course a majority of students who don’t work, mostly underclassman or those who fortunate enough to not have to. There’s also a slightly smaller majority of students who do have at least one job taking up a portion of their free time. Then there’s the minority of high school students who have not one job, but two, possibly even more. Working more than one job can have its pro’s, but it can definitely have its con’s.

PROS: 

1. Time management. By working more than one job you gain an even greater ability to manage your time. It allows you to not only manage both jobs and their time consuming responsibilities, but it also teaches you how to balance your time with friends and keep up with managing your time pertaining to school.
2.  Responsibility. It teaches you to be more responsible by acknowledging the responsibilities you have at both jobs, but also your responsibility to your school and yourself.
3. Money. Most high school students depend on their parents, but by having even one job provides you with your own money allowing you to be slightly more dependent on your money rather than your parents. Let’s face it, in high school you don’t have many financial responsibilities, but by having two jobs you can gain more. Pay for a car, insurance, and potential problems with the vehicle.
4. Money Management. With more money comes more knowledge on how to spend it. If you have little financial responsibilities, the smart thing to do would be to save some, if not all, of the money. However, if you do then having a comfortable amount of money to maintain those responsibilities and have a little extra is nice. By having more than one job and having that extra money, it teaches how much you can spend, save, and the difference between needing and wanting something. It gives you a greater value to materialistic items and in a way teaches you to how to budget.
5. Experience. By having more jobs you get to see and experience a different side of the work force. It shows you different areas of work. It also shows first hand how different bosses can react differently to your actions. Some may allow a little tardiness, while others might even consider on time as late.

CONS: 

1. Free Time. By having more than one job you can work up to six days a week, if not every day. It can leave you with little time for yourself, friends, or even family. You have to coordinate your plans with your friends or family around your work schedule. Sometimes you’ll be able to go to some fun and exciting events, but there will also be times when you miss out.
2. Stress. When you gain the responsibilities of your school work and your social life, but also the responsibilities of working multiple jobs, you can become overwhelmed. It can be difficult to find the time to do certain things. It can also provide an inexpiable amount of stress and exhaustion when you have an overwhelming amount of home work and just got done working until 10:30pm after going to school for eight hours.
3. Sleep deprivation. Sleep can become limited, especially if you work almost every night. You wake up early and go to school then get at most an hour or two break between getting out of school and going to work until late at night. After all that you’re expected to come home, complete your assignments for the day, and then miraculously get enough sleep to do it all over again the next day.
4. Increased probability of skipping school. Whether its the inability to wake up to your alarm in the morning after a long night or leaving early to catch an extra hour of homework time before work. Either way, it comes to a point where you’re simply drained of all motivation or sleep and truly reach a point where you can’t wake up for school in the morning and get there on time. You can also run out of time completely and in order to complete all of your homework, you have to leave a little early to give yourself some extra time.
5. Missing assignments. This can come from all of the above combining together and creating a endless cycle of getting caught up in assignments. It can also stimulate from simply running out of time and not being able to complete an assignment after work.

While maintaining multiple jobs at one time can be difficult, many valuable lessons are able to come of it. It can be a little overwhelming at times, especially in the beginning when you’re trying to figure everything out. However, it’s a worth while experience even with all the con’s that come with it. While it isn’t always something enjoyable, it is something worth trying.