Overworked High Schooler Essay

The Overworked High Schooler
There has long been an argument as to whether or not high school students should hold a job, especially a service job such as in the fast food industry, during their school year. On one side of the argument are those who believe that holding said job teaches the teenagers responsibility and how to be financially responsible. They even often liken it to having a newspaper route or running a lemonade stand. The opposing side is of the belief that holding a service industry job while attending high school only distracts them from their work and has a negative impact on their studies. Although there are some immediate pros to high schoolers being employed in the service industries during their school year, in the

Before praising the fact that having a job as a high schooler can reflect some responsibility, one should consider the fact that the teenage mind functions differently than its adult version. There are still areas growing. Deborah Yurgelun-Todd, director of neuropsychology and cognitive neuroimaging at McLean Hospital in Belmont, Mass. states: “I think the frontal lobe, that part of the executive region that we studied, is not always functioning fully in teenagers; or at least our data suggests that perhaps it 's not.” ("One Reason Teens Respond Differently to the World: Immature Brain Circuitry"). Their logic and reasoning differs greatly from that of their adult counterparts. Responsible adults understand that sacrifices must be made when they are confronted with equally important tasks. For example, many adults who work full time jobs and attend school, full time or part time, oftentimes sacrifice a rich social life. This is because they understand that there are but so many hours in a day and that sleep and other human activities have to be factored into said hours. On the other hand, a high percentage of what it is to be a teenager lies in their social life. They would rather take loads of pills and powders to stay awake, Red Bulls or even sleep in class or at work in an effort to dedicate more time to their social lives. They don’t mind losing sleep if it means that they will rise in social status. However, that loss of sleep can be extremely unhealthy for them. Since Etzioni states that one third of fast food employees work more than 30 hours per week (251), when are these students