Working during the school holidays:
What are the pros and cons of working during the school holidays?
As a student, I strongly discourage students to work during the holidays. There are a few pros and cons on this topic. School holidays are a time for students to catch up on their homework, revise on their weaker subjects and attend Co-curricular Activities (CCA). If they work, it will shorten the time for them to do all these. On the other hand, working lets them gain experience and also earn extra pocket money.
Earning extra pocket money is probably the main reason why students would want to get a job. With technology so advance and fashion becoming more fascinating, everyone wants to get the latest “in” thing. When parents do not give, we, children have to earn it ourselves. For example, when parents do not give allowance because it’s a school holiday, and a teenager has to have his or her hands on the latest gadget or mobile phone, they will only think of the most sensible way, getting a part-time job.
When it comes to gaining experience, it is probably the most valuable thing that a student would gain throughout the whole working process. Having grown up getting everything they want, they’ve never realized how much their parents have to work in order to feed the family. Hence, it is a very good way for them to learn and at the same time, experience how hard it is working in real life. Statistics have shown that students that are working learnt how to manage their finance and become more independent at home and in their studies.
Many of us, students, are always competing against each other, we always want to be the top and achieve better results for our future’s sake. Therefore, School holidays are the best time to catch up on out homework, revise on our weaker subjects and weaker students will also have to go back to school to attend what we call Remedial, or Supplementary Classes. For example, if a student is weak in Mathematics, the teacher requests him to come back during the holidays for remedial classes. However this student has to work and can not attend his class. In the end, this student failed his exams and has to repeat. There are many reports and articles proving that students that are incompetent to juggle work and studies together, are mainly the majority that will end up quitting their jobs to put their entire focus on their studies.
Another factor is, CCAs. Many instructors, trainers and teachers will make use of the holidays to put more practices on the students and prepare them for any upcoming competitions or performances. For example, for Performing Arts CCAs, most of the time it will make use of the November and March holidays to call the members of the CCAs back to have practice when they have an upcoming competition like the Singapore Youth Festival (SYF). If one of the members works, then they will have to miss practices, when they miss practices, they will either have to work even harder to be at the same pace with the others or they have to step out of the team because they are dragging the team behind.
In conclusion, working will let one gain experience and also earn extra pocket money. However, if one can not juggle with work, studies and CCAs all at the same time, they should not be working and should concentrate on their studies because studies are the top priority for every student.
