Your teenage years, including high school are supposed to be some of the best years of your life. But as you get older, you pile on more responsibilities. Many teenagers have to juggle between school, homework, sports, jobs, and many other situations. While it is good for teenagers to have freedom and responsibilities, is it ever too much to handle?

First of all, teenagers are in high school. High school can be like a job in it of itself because we are in school for about seven hours every day. Not to mention teachers give out plenty of homework, that can add up quickly. We have multiple teachers through the day for each subject. For example, just 15 minutes of homework in each class can lead to about an hour and a half of homework.

Then high school is full of many different clubs and sports that can occupy a student’s time before and after school. So now not only do we have a seven hour day, we have to add about three hours into our day because of the many different clubs and sports students can participate in. That can make some students days up to 10 hours.

At the age of 16, many teenagers first thoughts are, “now I can apply for jobs”. While this can be very beneficial with earning some extra cash, it is hard to fit in time if you are in school and have extracurricular activities.

When do you think it’s too much responsibility? This was the question asked to Junior Ashleigh Campos who replied, “Personally, I think too much responsibility is when you overwhelm your schedule…you should only pick one (Ex. A sport) or the other (ex. Work).”

Teens have gone either way, though. Some just are not interested in jobs, some struggle with trying to juggle everything, but others do find a way to balance everything out. Junior Crystal Offerman stated, “I personally go from being in all honors, to having practice and competitions almost 4 times a week now. Then whenever I am off I am working. It is hard, and it is a lot on my plate but I believe that it is ones decision to go with that lifestyle. It is not fun and it is a lot of work but it is time management. Plus it’s not like teachers aren’t going to be able to give students not as much work and delay learning due to students with sports and jobs. I think it is the sucky part of growing up.”

A personal preference could be to just do school and sports. Just because that teen knows what they can and cannot handle. If they tried to tackle a job along with the responsibilities they currently have, it might be too much stress for their personal preference. The choice is yours, but make sure you enjoy your four years of high school.