In the summer, many high school students enjoy the lake, hang out with friends or go on vacations. Meanwhile, another thing that millions of teens do in the summer is work a summer job. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, 41.2 percent of U.S. teens were working or actively looking for work in the month of June. At Yutan High School, 59.7 percent of students in grades 9-12 had a summer job, according to a survey sent out on Aug. 27. I was one of those teenagers who had a summer job. I babysat on Mondays and Wednesdays for a family in Yutan. During these days, I would arrive early in the morning to play and take care of the kids for about eight hours until one of their parents got home. Then on Tuesdays and Thursdays, I worked at a concession stand for the city. For this job, I would work a four-hour shift while taking customers’ orders in the concession stand. Based on my experiences from working, I think that every student should have a summer job because it can teach them basic life skills and has a lot of benefits.
One big life skill that summer jobs can teach is time management. According to Key Healthcare, 55 percent of teens report having stress from a lack of time management. This is something that summer jobs can help with in a different way than school can. Work schedules can change from day to day; meanwhile, school stays the same hours. Students can learn how to manage their time by scheduling hangouts with friends and family around work and scheduling work around summer weights and practices. This also teaches students to manage their time before work so they arrive on time. In my experience, I worked for eight hours two days a week and four hours the other two days. I was still able to hang out with my friends multiple times a week, even though they had jobs. We were able to hang out as long as we planned ahead. I was also still able to make it to summer weights in the mornings four times a week because I had planned my work schedule around it.
Money skills can also be learned from a summer job. Another 75 percent of American teens report low confidence in their personal financial knowledge, according to Consolidated Credit. By earning their own money, students can make smart decisions on what they buy. Also, it helps students to figure out how many hours to work, so they can make enough money. For instance, I am going on a school trip to Europe next summer, so I had to budget for it. During the summer, I learned how much money I needed to make to pay for the trip first, so then I could spend the rest on what I wanted. Since I am going on the trip and a senior in high school, I am at the age where I have started to pay for more things instead of my parents. This way, I can be more prepared for when I go off to college, so I am glad that having a summer job helped with my money management skills.
On top of general life skills, different jobs, from babysitting to working in construction, can teach different practical skills that can be applied later in life. Each job I have had has taught me different skills. My babysitting job taught me how to take care of kids, such as making sure they are fed and safe. This helps me a lot because I want to pursue a career in emergency medicine or have a family in the near future. My job working at the concession stands taught me social skills. I learned how to talk to customers professionally, which will also help me in my future. Just like I learned, social skills are another skill that students can learn. Working with other kids their age can help students put themselves out there to make new friends or learn how to appropriately and professionally talk to people.
Summer jobs can also bring other benefits to students, like keeping them busy in the summer. Instead of being out late at night and potentially getting into trouble, students are at home because they have to get up early in the morning to go to work. From my experience, if I had to work the next day, I never stayed out past nine p.m.
The only arguments I can see against students having summer jobs are that it can be difficult to find a summer job, it can lead to the student being overworked or not enjoying their summer or the student is too young. For some students, reaching out and finding a summer job can be scary or difficult. Some tips I have for this are to first contact family or friends to see if they have job opportunities. Another way to find a job is to apply to places online and schedule an interview. I think the only way students can be overworked is if they are not balancing their time. One way students can plan their time better is by using a calendar or a written schedule. Students can learn what their limit is with the amount of hours they work. They can enjoy their summer even while having a job. I was still able to hang out with my friends or do things I like, even though I worked four times a week. This again is a time management skill learned from having a summer job. I believe that no high school student is too young to have a summer job because there are age-appropriate jobs they can have. For example, when I was 13, some of my friends and I detasseled during the summer. Even though we worked in the field for most of July, I was still able to enjoy the rest of my summer with my friends.
These are just some of the ways having a summer job benefits students, teaching them learn basic life skills like time and money management and helping them stay in a good place and become more outgoing. Since Yutan is a city so close to Omaha, students at Yutan have a big advantage when it comes to finding a job. With so many businesses in Omaha, students can do a quick Google search to see what places are hiring. So next summer, I encourage all of my fellow high school students to find some sort of summer job—because from my experience, being a babysitter and working at a concession stand was one of the best things I’ve ever done.
