Student Jobs, Homework, and Stress

High School students are left with a lot of stress and anxiety due to the workload that they take on from school. Whether it be with homework, projects, tests, or quizzes, school can be very stressful for some people. This stress can build up if the student has a part-time job after school or in some instances a full-time job depending on where they work or what their situation is.

I have had a job at the same restaurant for about four years now. Their hours are from 3-10 pm so whenever I am scheduled on a weekday I go right home and start getting ready for work. This sometimes leaves me with little time to get any homework done or study.

Now luckily at Sutton High, we have periods where we can get all that work done but some students at other schools might not be so lucky.

The argument here can be that ‘you are a student first and that should be your top priority’ which is true, but what if they need to work? Now, this may be surprising to some of you folks in Sutton, but in some places or families, their parents don’t make six figures and can afford to buy them everything they want. Some families need their kids to work for extra income for bills, groceries, etc. So in situations like this do teachers extend deadlines for these students under special circumstances? The answer depends on the teachers at the end of the day.

One Article states that 30% of high school students in the United States work for a portion of their school year. They also touch base on the fact that some students work for spending money, which many do. But it also touches base on the fact that some work for the sheer necessity for their family or they need to save up for college – another financial burden placed on those who can’t always afford what they want.

There are many pros and cons to working as a high school student. Some pros include that you are taught hard work and the value of money. A con is that you’re academically affected and can lose free time.

Homework is a constant issue among high school students. Many students find homework unnecessary because we spend several hours doing work throughout the school day, so why is it fair that we have to do it when we get home? Sometimes homework can take up to an hour or more and this can affect a student’s schedule with work.

Research done by Stanford in 2013 showed that 56% of students say homework is their primary source of stress. They also said that many students find homework to be a waste of time and effort.

Having a job in high school is not a bad thing. It teaches you many skills and also how to work for your money. School should come first but again if you need to work for your family then you should be able to.

If teachers stop assigning homework or work that carries over till after school then maybe teens’ stress levels will go down. If a kid can’t do their homework because of the job that they need to be at, the teachers should try to be more understanding or not give homework at all.

To dive deeper into homework and how it makes students feel, a survey done on students states that 70% dislike homework. It also notes that students dislike teachers who assign multiple daily assignments. Students use the idea of going home and being able to relax as what can get them through their day. So just adding three hours of homework to that scenario will leave a negative thought on school and work itself. 

Students do not get the sleep that they need today. It is recommended that kids aged 10-18 should get 8-10 hours of sleep each night, but most teens only get 6.5 hours. If students aren’t getting enough sleep they can start to lose concentration, have poor grades, have anxiety, depression, physical/mental exhaustion, and also suicidal thoughts and tendencies.

These are not good emotions to have within a teen who might have a lot of responsibilities at home, work, or school. The article linked above mentions how a 17-year-old girl starts crying because of the workload she has received from her teachers. She will be busy finishing homework she has well into the night. She doesn’t finish until 12:30 am that night and then struggles to concentrate on the class she has the next morning due to her exhaustion. This just goes to show how homework on top of an already busy schedule does nothing to benefit the student or their grades. 

The main concern of this article is student jobs and homework. An article showed that more affluent students are given the resources to be able to finish their homework. Whether those resources are computers, internet connection, areas to work at home, and parents able to be there to help them.

Then it starts to talk about kids who aren’t as fortunate. There is a chance that they have to work after-school jobs to help support their family. Maybe they have to work because they are their own source of income for college tuition. Also, there could be a chance that no one is home to monitor the child after school.

It also mentions that excessive homework can cause physical health problems and cause high stress within a student. Now take the stress from the job the student has and then add it with the stress they have from homework, that is not a fun combination.

Homework, jobs, and stress are all something that induces stress as a teen. Whether that student is rich or poor their stress levels have no purpose of being so high. Kids go to school for eight hours a day to do work. So why do they have to do another two hours when they get home?

High school students at the end of the day are still kids. They need to have the basic childhood experience that every kid deserves. Many problems I pointed out and presented in my article can be resolved with the elimination of homework for students.