According to a Pew Research Poll, 70% of teens deal with large amounts of stress in their daily lives. Similarly 81% of teenagers have heightened stress levels due to the COVID-19 pandemic, as said by an article in Frontiers. 

 Students at Central Kitsap High School say that having a job only adds to that stress level.  

Like many students in high school, Reed Sanders, a junior at Central Kitsap High School,  who works at Starbucks states that his after school job takes up most of his free time. 

“When I’m not at school, I’m at work,” Sanders said. “…I have time to do my work, everything I need to do but nothing I want to do.”

Sanders is not the only one who feels this way, Jasmine Borja is a junior who works at the Hazelwood YMCA. Borja works after school and on the weekends which she says does not leave much time to get homework done and to do school activities.

“Sometimes like doing work, especially after school, you’re kind of too tired to do anything else,” Borja said. “So homework never gets done. And then taking up your weekends to work makes less time for… school activities.” 

Homework is something that most students have to deal with everynight and some students have other activities such as sports on top of having a job. Autumn Linder who is a senior at Central Kitsap High school works at Olympic Pool and believes that with everything students have to do it can just become too much to handle. 

“If you have a sport it’s way too much [to handle] because you have to sleep and you have to do your homework and you have to do your job,” Linder said.

Linder even had to back away from sports for a while due to working so much during the week. Which according to Web MD is counterproductive in helping with stress because participating in sports is supposed to lower stress levels. 

Students like Borja however strive to find ways to make sure she knows what is happening in her life in the long run to try and manage her stress. 

“I plan out my weeks and make sure I know when I’m working and when my free hours are and when I have practices so that I know I have to get my stuff done during that time or I don’t get my stuff done.” Borja said.

Another way some students try to keep the school and work related stress down is to make sure not to fall behind. 

“For like homework I try to stay on top of it to be…ahead of all the stuff, “ Linder said. “ Then if it’s like sports wise… I kind of like to back away from it and do homework but most of the time I stay ahead so it’s easy.”