Pros And Cons Of Working College Students

Laurence Steinberg discusses in his essay “Part-Time Employment Undermines Students’ Commitment to School” that students who have a part-time job do not do as well in school as other students. Working twenty or more hour shifts per week can interfere with a students grades and accomplishments in school. Steinberg states, “That the key issue is not whether a student works but how much time he or she devotes to the job”(472). I work a minimum of twenty-five hours a week making and that makes it difficult to complete my homework or study because I come home very tired and drained from my job.

Darolia (2013) places itself in a theoretical context which concerns the link between time use and student outcomes. Darolia notes that students have a fixed amount of time to accomplish various tasks (e.g., academic work, extracurriculars, and social activities). Working while in school further limits a student’s time constraint; as a consequence, work-study can injure the quality of those aforementioned activities. In order to ground his point, Darolia cites the work of Kalenkoski and Pabilonia (2010) which asserts that work has a negative impact on first-semester GPA for full and part-time college students. However, Darolia notes that work can positively affect student outcomes, because work encourages students to engage in better time-management practices. He does not directly support this in his paper; but, he cites a study which asserts a positive association between FWS and credit completion (another indicator of student

Incoming freshmen experience the difficult decision of whether or not they would prefer to maintain a part-time job while attending college. For some students it may be a necessity, while for others, simply a desire. As an academic advisor, it is my job to assist the students in their growth and development by establishing meaningful educational plans which are compatible with their life goals. The student can either decide to manage working during school, or can solely focus on academics. Beginning college can be quite overwhelming, even without having a part-time job. College freshman students who are in college must consider academic, social, and psychological effects of working, in addition to whether or not it will interfere with their educational goals.

I also found that I spent a median of 5 hours off campus, which takes up most the day after classes have ended. Even though I enjoy every moment of the adventures taking place throughout the day, later on during the night I either stay up until a ridiculous time doing homework or I forget to do an assignment and have to wake up early the next day to finish it. This has not affected my grades, in fact I still manage to turn in quality work but I know that if I make changes, I will find myself not stressing as much.

If a student spends too much time working, then they will not have enough time or focus on homework, which has a detrimental effect on grades. It is not worth sacrificing excellent grades and scholarships just to work a job. Also, overworking with little downtime will put a lot of stress on a student. When a student works excessively, it takes away time with family and friends. This may weaken relationships with family and friends and cause more tension when a student is around others. But, this can all be avoided if school and a student’s social life are balanced with

Students genuinely are more sharp and react quicker to their surroundings. As a result, teen car crash rates dramatically decrease. Psychology Today states, “... in Fayette County, Kentucky. In the 1990's, after a change in start time from 7:30 AM to 8:30 AM a decrease was found in car accident rates for 16 - 18 year olds in the Fayette County school district , while rates actually increased in the rest of the state for 17 - 18 year olds.” This shows that later school increases alertness and safety. This new alertness also allows students to make less silly mistakes. Students pay more attention the the problem, and therefore aren’t tricked by wording or a slight difference between an answer choice and the correct answer. This ultimately leads to a better grades, or grades. As stated earlier, good grades go a long way, and they stay with students for their entire lives. A common belief is that if school ends later, students would sleep later, due to the the fact that school ends later. However, even with the same workload and after-school activities, I am convinced that students finish around the same time, either way. The reason? Students are more engaged in their work, are more attentive, and get the work done faster. The National Sleep Foundation, or NSF, clearly shows this in their studies, noting, “Suburban students tended to keep their regular bed times and so added about an hour of sleep per night and

Many students do not have enough time due to the countless hours doing excessive school work. Students have assignments that can and

Working during college is a big decision for many people. Some people have the ability to take on a bigger task in trying to balance academic success and job experience. I can relate to this issue for much, because I want to succeed in school but I also want to begin building my resume and learning on-the-job experience. I want to become more knowledgeable through the classroom material, but everyone always tells me that the best way to learn is to just go out there and do it. That is the issue for me, trying to make time for both school and work. Personally I need a lot of time to prepare for tests and exams and sometimes it is a struggle for me. I need time to prepare for school, but I still want to go out and learn through the field experience.

For four year public and private universities, the amount of work necessary to pay for college tuition is much higher. Working for long hours can impede students from partaking in several habits that are linked to success in college, such as getting adequate rest, studying, and being involved in extracurricular activities.

Is spending money more important than academic achievements and sleeping? Studies show that only eight percent of students in high school get enough sleep (cfah.org). That is a staggering statistic. Sleeping an adequate amount of eight hours or more is an important factor for the development of an adult brain. Also, if the student is working, they’re not spending as much time as they could on their schoolwork. That in turn, results in a lower grade point average. The benefits of having spending money doesn’t outweigh the benefits of not working through high school.

College can be very stressful and overwhelming, for the first time, especially when you work a full-time job. This can be very demanding for a college student. College students think the school load will be light, easy, and breeze right through their courses. Therefore, College students should not work full-time jobs and go to school.

According to Jonathan Orszag, “There are two types of working students, including those who primarily identify themselves as students but who work in order to pay the bills, and those who are first and foremost workers who also take some college classes” (Orszag). Most students consider themselves as workers who study since they are working full-time for the sake of paying off their college tuition. In addition, full-time employment possibly could undermine a student’s performance in class. Students who work about thirty-five hours a week often have negative results on their studies, while students who only work ten hours a week appear to have a positive impact in their GPA. On the downside, working an average of ten hours a week will only earn the student about three to four thousand dollars a year, which is only enough for one semester of classes at a CSU school. Three to fours thousand dollars a year is not a sufficient amount of money to purchase the classes for the remaining second semester and other personal

Students would have a higher success rate if they could focus on their studies opposed to focusing how they are going to pay for them. Students who have to work and go to post-secondary education are less focused on their education compared to those who do not have to work. On average, a student should get between eight and nine hours of sleep which is not possible most of the time. If students have to go to school for approximately five hours per day, do one to four hours of homework, and sleep eight-nine hours that all equals to 14-18 hours of their day. How is a student possibly able to work six to eight hours on top of that? Some will say “Work and school combined makes for a more responsible student due to the extra tasks which forces them to use time management appropriately.” Technically yes, however the human body is not built to deal with so many tasks at once. Work can consume up to 40 hours of additional time that a student could use for either extra assignment time or even extra sleep.

Students have other things than school work. They spend time doing physical activities and other things. Schools that start “at 7:30 by one hour would increase math and reading scores by 2 to 3 percentile points” (Finley Edward). When they get better test scores, they feel more confident in themselves. So students who have other things than school, they have less chances of better scores.

According to the study, students often begin to become more engaged in the classroom environment, therefore setting their self up for academic success. Throughout the study, Steinberg studied the effect of working long hours outside of school and concluded that working less