After a long eight hours at school, and another two of rehearsal, senior Brandon Beeler drives straight to work. Beeler takes a step through the back door of his workplace to the sound of that familiar security jingle. Clocking in, he remembers the homework and alarm clock set for 7 a.m. waiting for him at home.

From gas, to clothes, to food, to entertainment and those pesky application fees, many Texas teens find themselves searching for jobs the moment the summer after they turn 15. However, managing several hours of work a week becomes more complicated when fall rolls around and the school year begins.

“I’ve worked at TCBY for about seven or eight months now, it’s really, for the most part, laid back,” Beeler said. “It can be pretty tedious work sometimes, a lot of cleaning, but I mainly work the register and just keep the back in stock. There’s not really one set thing that we do.”

According to the United States Bureau of Labor Statistics, 6.2 million teens aged 16-19 were employed in the U.S. as of April. With 33% of those teens being employed by restaurants. Among that 33% is Suzi Collings, a senior member of the varsity dance team Silver Stars, and employee of Satellite Cafe.

“Something I really like about my job is that there are a lot of high schoolers that work there, but I don’t often work with other high schoolers,” Collings said. “Sometimes I’ll be working with 30 year old employees, and it’s just interesting to hear about their lives while also talking about mine, because our lives are so different. I really like what I get to do. I like taking online orders and matching everything on the screen. I like being able to memorize what goes on each dish.”

Psychology teacher, Diana Croll-guard has taught at Bowie for eight years across a variety of social studies subjects and says that she observes anywhere from 40-50% of the juniors and seniors and 10% of freshmen in her classes working part-time jobs.

“When students work a moderate or manageable amount of hours per week, I think that part-time jobs have immense benefits,” Croll-Guard said. “They gain responsibility, confidence, learn new skills and develop many soft transferable skills.”

There are several expenses many high schoolers are expected to be responsible for. Beeler noted that he is responsible for paying half of his car insurance bill each month. Although The Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) sets specific caps on teen working times, with monthly expenses like these, working regularly is necessary to meet financial needs.

“It’s important for me to have my own money and my own budget,” Beeler said. “I think it’s important to learn how to manage money and manage things on your own. It’s just a sign of independence and responsibility. It can be really challenging managing stuff like that, but I think it’s definitely worth it. So, as well as the experience, it’s good to have different job experiences and learn how to do these types of things so you’re ready once you kind of leave for college and stuff.”

While money management is an important skill to learn, holding a job while being responsible for projects, homework, studying and extracurricular activities can create challenges for students who push themselves with course levels and number of after-school commitments.

“Adolescents still have several years for their prefrontal cortex to fully develop and that plays a major role in executive functioning skills such as time management and task prioritization,” Croll-Guard said. “Adolescents tend to feel stressors more severely because their amygdala is more active and their prefrontal cortex is still developing which is responsible for higher-reasoning. Operating with more emotion can cause added stress, but some stress is good and a sense of purpose is great”

With still developing prefrontal cortex’s, high school students are in many ways unprepared for what can quickly become a 8 a.m. to 10 p.m. workday. Additionally, many students already load their plates with several clubs, sports, and fine arts commitments. According to a 2019 national study by Michigan state, 46% of surveyed middle and high school-age children were expected to participate in more than one type of school activity, with 80% participating in at least one.

“If I have 7 a.m. practice, club meeting after school, tests the next day and a shift, those days are really difficult, because I have four hours where I’m at work and I could be working on all the other things, but I have to do my job,” Collings said. “I think that’s probably the biggest challenge. Sometimes I just get really burnt out, especially early morning, super late nights. I’ve gotten very used to it, but it still is pretty difficult.”

According to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, teens ages 13-18 need at least 8-10 hours of sleep a night to function effectively the following day. With school, after-school activities and work, many students don’t get home until late and are kept up by homework after.

“It can have negative effects when it is not balanced,” Croll-Guard said. “It is important to always prioritize time for yourself. Sleep should be the last thing that goes wayside. Sleep is needed for growth, memory and learning.”

When looking for employment, teens will have to consider finding a job with flexible hours and ability to fluctuate shift frequency, especially if their school and extra-curricular activities take up a considerable amount of their day.

“During the school year, I’ll try to work like twice a week, sometimes three, if I can,” Beeler said. “Theater takes a lot of after school time, so sometimes I can’t get a full four-hour shift. I would be working three hour shifts which means that I need to work more times in a week in order to meet the amount that I want in my paycheck each time I receive that.”

The National Library of Medicine conducted what is referred to as the Youth Developmental Study which followed participants from middle adolescence to adulthood. The findings of the study suggest that students performance in school were dependent on the frequency and pattern of work hours, not whether the students work at all. Those who limited either the number of hours worked a week or number of weeks worked throughout the year were most likely to enjoy school, and have higher grades.

“Focus on the areas you have control and account for those elements,” Croll-Guard said. “Stressing about something you cannot influence will only add to an individual’s stress.  Limiting social media is also very beneficial. The representation someone presents on their social media is not their reality and it is extremely unhealthy to compare your reality with someone’s theatrics.”

Before getting her job at Satellite cafe, Collings would complete her homework the moment she arrived home. However, now that she is working she finds creative ways to maximize her time, sometimes doing her homework in the restaurant’s back office when business is slow.

“Really prioritize your time and don’t push things off,  don’t have the ‘I’ll do it later mentality,’ because that is what really held me back,” Collings said. “I would be like, ‘I’ll do it later,’ after my shift, and then it’s 2 a.m. and I have to get up in three hours. Find a job that you would like, because I feel like if I worked in retail, I would probably hate it. I really like what I do and I knew from the start that I would like what I do.”

Beeler got his first job during his freshman year and noted that he initially struggled to balance his workload. Eventually, he found support in his friends. By maintaining a flourishing social life, Beeler was able to relieve some of his stress.

“I think that it’s really healthy to have a very good balance, it can take a lot of time to find that right balance, but it’s possible,” Beeler said. “School doesn’t teach you, necessarily, on its own, how to be a successful and responsible human being once you go to college or right into the workforce or whatever your plan is after. So, I think it’s really important to teach yourself and take on maybe more than you think you can handle. If it doesn’t work out, it doesn’t work out, but I think that’s really one really good way to teach yourself to be a responsible, soon to be, adult. “