With the age of high school, money starts to become more and more important for students. We need money to support ourselves, our friends, and our family. With that need for employment the question arises, how does this play into academic success? Can students balance that need with the needs school gives us? Now to see how that balance plays out by hearing from students who choose to work,choose not to work, and need to work. 

First talking to an anonymous sophomore student employed by choice. Her motivation to keep up with employment is mainly for, “self supporting money and money to support [her] friends.” She works nine to ten hours per week. With her ability to manage her workload and school load she’s not currently overwhelmed, but “feels the stress building up.” With her time needed to be in the workplace and her time needed to keep up with work she loses her sleep. Getting around six hours on an average week day. She keeps up with all honors classes and does so while maintaining good grades. So far she’s doing a good job to be successful in her workplace and her academics. 

Next, hearing from an anonymous senior student who is unemployed. She is unemployed because she wants to devote her time more to school to succeed in high school as she’s getting ready to go to college. She’s in 4 AP classes and an honors class. When offered the idea of employment she, “doesn’t think it’s smart to manage her college prep and school with [employment].” With school and sports being her priorities she feels as if she doesn’t get enough rest and is sometimes stressed. However she does feel on top of her workload. Because within her schedule she finds time to do her school work, mostly saving her work for the weekends.

Lastly, hearing from another anonymous sophomore student who works to support himself and his family. He works around 30 hours a week and stays at work till late hours such as 10 to 11. He keeps up with three honors classes, and does, “most school work in [his] school day, to keep up with sports” included with his day to day life. His motivation for the long hours is to help his mom within the workplace. He isn’t feeling stressed even with juggling the three priorities. Right now he’s keeping up with the level of classes, and the hours taken for his work. 

From talking to multiple students we can see the amount of time in the workforce does have a reflection on the amount of academic success levels within school. However it’s mostly within the choices of classes. Even though the workforce may add more levels of stress onto our students we see very good time management with both ways of success. Every person I talked to is striving to manage their time with their choices, their motivation, and strive for success.