Stressed: School, Homework, Sports, Jobs
As students at North Allegheny become more independent, jobs become more important and useful to the typical teenage life. Anything from hours of homework to searching for an after school job, high school students become further stressed and filled with anxiety throughout the year.
Homework from school is difficult to complete as it is in the little time available, and countless amounts of students are drilled with school work, which builds on more stress for the following day. On an normal school day, a high school student usually spends between 2 and 4 hours on after-school homework. After a seven hour day of education, and after a shift at work, a student might not begin to work on homework until later that night, and might not finish all assigned work. This then produces more stress and/or anxiety.
Tenth grader Matthew Rodgers, who works at T-Bones Marketplace, says “My late shifts cause me to start my homework late at night. I’m usually exhausted for the next day.”
After-school sports are another pressure of high school education after working a shift for an after-school job. Some students will spend 2 to 3 hours a night at a sports practice, and 4 to 6 hours at a game. It is usually recommended for student with a high amount of honors classes and a busy after-school schedule to partake in a study hall class, but many fail short of completing that recommendation. I have personal experience with the difficulty of completing school work and partaking in an after-school activity. After some school days in the winter, I have lacrosse conditioning, and later that night I may have basketball practice. For a high school student, the work overload is almost impossible to complete after school and after an athletic club, without staying awake throughout the night to finish. Tenth grader Coco Delvecchio, who works at Soergel’s, says that she often “miss(es) study sessions and clubs after school because of work.”
The pressure of participating in work hours after school hours is usually exceptionally irritating to a busy high school student. Delvecchio informs us, “It’s frustrating to put work hours into my schedule when I just want to relax after school instead.”
Many students become irritated from a homework overload and work hours built on top of education, which promotes stressful nights of hours of school work. Numerous high school students are sleep deprived from the anxiety of school work or tests required for the following day of school, and sometimes lack the social aspect of the typical teenage life.
As teachers become more aware of the overburden of school work compared to occupations students have after school, take-home-school work is hopefully reduced, depending on the teacher. Relying on an open after-school schedule, participating in an after-school job has its positive aspects to it, such as earning money and attaining experience from it.
High school students with hectic schedules should consider partaking in a study hall, or reducing their after-school schedules for a less frantic calendar of activities.
