Student Employees
- Emma Saltman
- Nov 18, 2016
- 2 min read
Having a job as a high schooler can be both beneficial and detrimental. While allowing you to earn money and develop good work ethic, it also can have very negative effects on your grades, opportunities, and social life.
Herbert Marsh and Sabina Kleitman, with NCES (National Center for Education Statistics), did a study where the observed 12,084 working students who graduated on time and didn’t transfer or dropout of school. The data they collected showed that the longer hours a person worked the lower their grades were, in comparison to their classmates. It also concluded that the more they worked the less likely they were to hold leadership positions, participate in extracurricular activities, and attend or stay in college.
These students who work full time while in school tended to set lower academic and career goals for themselves, further causing a decline in their grades. School wasn’t the only problem that Marsh and Kleitman found though.
There were also negative effects on these students social lives. Obviously, the more students worked, the less free time they had to be social and hang with their friends.
High schoolers who worked longer hours seemed to have not as many close friends compared to the majority of the their peers. They had friends in school but rarely hung out after school with these people.
On the flip side, work allows you to make some money so when you aren’t working you are able to go places with your friends, or go shopping, or do whatever it is that you may like. You can also start saving up money early to use later to buy something important you want, like a car for example. Working also helps people develop a sense of responsibility and good work ethic, helping them be better employees later on in life.
Depending on how you balance your work, school, and social life, being employed while in high school can either be a very good or very bad thing. If you are a working student remember that it is important to maintain academic integrity and to keep close friendships.
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