As summer approaches, many Upper St. Clair High School students are asking “what shall I do this summer?” The answer is crisp and clear: get a summer job. Summer employment is a rewarding experience and can keep students busy in the summer without incurring the costs associated with costly summer camps or vacations.
Summer jobs obviously provide students with a great deal of capital. Junior Austin Wilding, a sales clerk at a Sears© in the South Hills Village Mall in Bethel Park, commented that his job boosts his “cash flow” and permits him to “purchase goods, like Arizona Iced Tea.” Added money can help students in a variety of means, ranging from enjoyable purchases like massage chairs to useful and simultaneously fun purchases like cars or motorcycles capable of taking students to after-school activities and clubs. Coincidentally, currency from summer jobs can help college-bound seniors purchase books for their freshman year of university.
Summer jobs can be highly educational. Senior Avisha Shah commented she “worked in robotics at [Carnegie Mellon University]” for the summer after her sophomore year. Such jobs help students gain practical knowledge and become more skilled in a plethora of extracurricular areas. For example, if a student intends on being a mechanical engineer, taking a summer job as an apprentice at Consol Energy or at a small firm would be beneficial to their education and future.
Responsibility and independence can also be secured through the mode of summer jobs. Senior Willy Mordant voiced “school jobs make [students] more prepared for real jobs.” A summer job also “offer the opportunity for independence, decision-making, and friendship building” (www.summerjobsection.com). In addition, junior Alex Garwig quipped “[girls] like the moola which you get from jobs.”
Summer jobs importantly keep kids, even in a posh suburb like Upper St. Clair, out of the streets and out of trouble. On June 1st, 2011, after a week marked by violence in Boston, the mayor, Thomas M. Memino, urged employers to hire teenagers and emphasized the aspect that summer jobs keep children in check and out of mischief (www.bostonherald.com).