What is the most important skill for High School students to have? According to a survey by US News, time management and organization skills were considered the most important skills to have. In another survey, teens who have jobs have significantly higher organization and time management skills. Personally, I think every teenager should strive to get a job before they start college (at least ones that aren’t affected by other activities). I believe students can improve in many skills if they can manage life between going to school as well as working a job. “I honestly don’t need a job right now,” said Harrison Randall,  “and to be honest, I didn’t think I need one either when I was making minimum wage and sometimes doing harder work than other co-workers.” However, those small checks build up as time went on, and as of right now, I have acquired a decent amount of money.

Some students encounters difficulties while working, including finding time to focus on school. Junior Trevor Brown, who works up to fifteen hours a week, shared that “I do sometimes have trouble balancing my schoolwork and my job.” This may be true in some cases, but In but in my case, my job did not significantly affected my schoolwork. Having a job has made my time management skills a lot better. I learned how to complete schoolwork around my job and how to be efficient in it. When I didn’t have a job, I used to push things to the side and usually try to complete it in the last minute. Now, I’m very organized and put more thought and effort into my schoolwork. Additionally, according to studies done by Boston University, students that have a job have higher grades than ones do not and usually lead better jobs in the future.     

Before my job I never knew the true value of a dollar. I would just spend money whenever I could and wherever I wanted to. I never appreciated money before I began working. Dealing with customer complaints, standing and working on my feet for long hours, turning down hanging out with friends and missing big events around towns have been very hard to deal with. However, since I know I am going to be rewarded at the end, the workload becomes less tiresome.

I have not just learned time management and organizational skills but also how to budget money, communicate better, how to work fast, and how to work as a team. There is a lot more than just earning money with a job, it is about learning new skills and preparing you for the future, such as college, which is not that far away for most of us. I really think that if one is planning to go to college, one should really try to get a job right now. Although students can not fully financially support him or herself with a part-time job, learning all of these skills with a job would help them in the long run.