70 hours.

When an adult says they are working 70 hours, the typical response is aghast and some form of pity.

However, this is the secret amount of time many high schoolers may spend working in a week. 35 hours of school for seven hours a day five days a week, and then add the homework load for a student in advanced classes, and that is three more hours each day, bringing the number to 50… Then add in one of those ‘beneficial’ after school jobs. The number is 70 hours.

After-school jobs have long been hailed as an instrument in teaching high schoolers responsibility and preparing students for the workplace as well as supplying much wanted spending money.

However, it is clear that for many students, it comes at a greater cost.

A 2011 study by researcher Kathryn Monahan found that increasing working hours led to lower academic achievement and limited extra-curricular involvement.

As students, our primary responsibility should be our studies.

Unless students are in a dire situation at home in which extra income is needed, part-time jobs should be avoided. At the very least, they should not be praised as valuable and mandatory in the path from adolescent to grown-up.

To me, there is little value in something that robs us of 20 hours of our already 50-hour work week and has a proven record of contributing to an academic downfall.

All of us have less than four years until adulthood seizes us and throws us to the wolves called life. For just these moments, let’s not ruin it.