Part-Time Job and High School Students
High school is an important stage for the students to study advanced learning and think about what to do in their future. After high school, some students go to college to study more, while the others decide to get in the society to work right after graduation. Most of people may have an experience having a part-time job when they were high school students. If you have, what did you learn from the part-time job? The issue of whether high school students should be able to have a part-time job or not has been controversial. Part-time job proponents support their side by maintaining that part-time jobs are great opportunity for high school students to experience social life, and enable the students to not only learn how to be independent from their family, but also find a suitable position to get in, in their future. However, having a part-time job, while they are in high school, interferes with the student’s studying, and has a possibility for them to spend the money from their job using inappropriate activities. Also, part-time job could be a factor to determine their future.
It has been claimed that having a part-time job while people are in high school is an opportunity to experience social life. This position contends that since high school is a limited place, having a part-time job helps them see the world out of school and broaden their perspectives. It is also argued that students can learn how to work together and interact with different positions, such as boss, a manager, and coworkers, through part-time jobs. Having a part-time job, so this argument goes, is a good idea for high school students for experiencing social life. However, part-time job interferes with the students’ studying because they may have to spend most of their time working for their part-time job after school, causing them to lose their interest in learning at school. Besides, considering that high school student’s primary duty is to study, the experience of social life from part-time job would unnecessarily be challenging. It is said, in Korea, that you cannot hunt two rabbits at the same time, which refers to the importance of focusing on only one objective to be successful.
Secondly, it has been argued that students can learn how to be independent through having part-time job while they are in high school. Regardless of whether they get in the society or go to college after high school, the experience that they have had a part-time job before helps them to be independent so that they would manage themselves well in various ways, especially in financial way. It is also maintained that working experience must come before being independent because it takes money management. However, having a part-time job when people are in high school has a possibility for them to spend the money from their part-time job inappropriately. In other words, they have somewhat of a difficulty to judge which is appropriate and which is not mostly because they are not mentally matured yet. For example, they are likely to waste the money earned from their work to get alcohol, cigarettes, and drugs, which are even not allowed for minors. Having a part-time job, so this argument goes, would not be a good idea for the high school students because they are too immature to manage themselves.
Last but not least, it has been asserted that having work experience while people are in high school enables them to find a suitable career in their future. This argument contends that the students can figure out which job is the most proper for them as they work for many different jobs. It is also argued that it is very important for people to find the right direction to go through to reach their goal in the future, and so is how early people figure it out. However, having a part-time job while they are still young could be a fatal factor to determine their future. Since part- time job requires a burdensome responsibility, students have to allocate their time into work considerably, no matter how much they need to study after school. This would result in academic failure, and cause them to have a difficulty to enter a preferable university. Therefore, having part-time job of high school students gets in the way of the ultimate aim of high school education.
To sum up, even though many people maintain that high school students should be able to have a part-time job, as they enumerate a few arguments, such as having part-time job would be an opportunity to experience social life in advance, and through the part-time job, the students can not only learn how to be independent, but also find a suitable career in their future, three points discussed above refute those arguments: interfering with students’ studying, possibility to spend money from a part-time job in inappropriate way, and a fatal factor to determine students’ future. Being independent, work experience, and finding suitable career are important in our lives, but are not something that we should take into our consideration in high school. For the better future, high school students should concentrate on what they are required or assigned to do at school.