Why Every Teen Should Get a Job

Teens have a lot going on in their life with school, homework, extracurricular activities, and spending time with family. But there’s one more activity they should make time for, and that’s an after school job. People say students have overwhelming amounts of homework, but in actuality there usually isn’t actually that much for some students. I have a decent amount of homework to complete, but I normally have a week or longer to complete it all, along with class time and a study hall where I can put in headphones and grind through all my homework.

Some students also may say that they have sports that they play, which may take up all their free time, but we seem to forget that us students have a full two and a half months where we may not have any plans and nothing better to do than get a job and earn some money. But certain students may have other plans that cause them to not be able to. Like myself I play basketball nearly year-round and it takes up a lot of my time which makes it difficult for me to find a job because of lack of time, however kids like me can find different job opportunities, such as being a referee for a kids recreation game. This can give teens an option to make some money while not being a huge commitment. When I asked Fruita Monument sophomore Will Pfaffendorf if teens should get a job and he said, “Yes. jobs teach us life skills that schools can’t, and you make money, and who doesn’t like money.”

Nearly 1 in 4 high school students over the age of 16 have a job, that still means that 75% of students over 16 don’t work. Now these students may have super busy schedules and other commitments, but the benefits and knowledge of the “Real World” that comes from a job are truly great. As said by The Center for Work Ethic Development, “Having a summer or year-round job can help teens set up a foundation for future career success: Learn money-management skills, such as saving. Get an idea for their future career path and decide what they like (or don’t like) to do. Build self-confidence and develop a sense of responsibility.” From a job teens can learn what it takes to be a responsible and reliable employee and how to manage a paycheck and money in general. 

Students may think they have a good work ethic and know how to hold a job even though they’ve never had one, but a recent survey indicates many college graduates may be hitting the job market unprepared to meet employer expectations. While 89.4 percent of recent grads rated themselves as proficient in their work ethic and professionalism, only 42.5 percent of surveyed employers shared that view, according to the National Association of Colleges and Employers’ Job Outlook 2018. This just adds that us teens tend to think we can handle things that we’ve never experienced before, and we think the “real world” isn’t much different than the world we’ve been living in for our entire life, but it’s a whole new world out there where everything that we think we know is thrown out the window.

Those are the things that make a part-time or summer job important for teens, they teach us what it’s like to work in the “Real World”, manage money and a paycheck, and you get to be accustomed to being trustworthy, hard-working, and reliable employee. That’s why summer or part-time jobs for teens are an endangered species worth saving.