Nearly 30% of highschoolers have a job. Their lives consist of school and work, barely any free time for them to spend time with their friends or family. Many students begin working at the age of 16. 

“I work at Walmart and began working there when I was a Sophomore”.

A common place for students to work is at local restaurants or stores, such as Amiah.

“I am a consumables associate so I work at HBA pharmacy and pets as well as grocery and milk and eggs”.

She currently takes 6 classes at CCHS including pe, TAing for a teacher, and algebra while still working  5 days a week. Students work up to 40-50 hours a week just trying to make a living to survive.

“I work 30 hours a week with 2 days off. It’s just hard to manage between my school work and work because I cannot cut back my hours”.

Students are stressed trying to deal with school making sure to get good grades and everything turned in on time not to mention work. Work adds a different type of stress that many teens have to learn to handle. Many students don’t have a life outside of work and school.

“I mean I don’t really have one anymore. All I do is work and go to school and go home and sleep.” 

Amira Alkatim is currently a jr at the highschool and is taking several AP classes while trying to balance work and on top of it all, she is also playing soccer for the school.

“So with all my honors and AP classes. I do have a lot of work but I changed my schedule so that I only work on the weekends just so that I have time during the week to get my homework done because when I first started I was working during the week and I knew it wasn’t going to work so I changed to only working the weekends so I could get my work done and play soccer.”

Students who balance work and school have a special characteristic that other students don’t have. They have the ability to multitask and prioritize. These are just a few students who are going to be very successful adults later on in life. 

Students that balance work and school are learning how to become well rounded young adults.