Around this time every year, college students have all gone back to school and left behind their summer jobs, leaving large vacancies that high schoolers immediately flock to. Students are lured by financial independence, but it comes at a cost — academics.

DGS students are trying their hardest to get interviews at Best Buy and Mariano’s when really they should be trying their best at studying for a large number of tests they probably have this week. Yes, money is important, but so is sleep. Think of all the time homework usually takes and then add a four-hour minimum shift of something like cart duty on top of that.

You probably don’t end up with eight fun hours of sleep, which is the minimum amount of sleep recommended for teenagers. That lack of sleep can accumulate, and if you feel terrible after missing just an hour of sleep, imagine your mood when that number begins to climb even higher.

Lack of sleep and an ornery mood lead to you being a bit distracted in class or just sleeping straight through one, which will, in turn, have the same effect on a student’s grades. You’re gonna miss some stuff. A jigsaw puzzle can’t be solved without all the pieces — how would a math test be any different?

Even if you get notes from friends or look over the teacher’s presentation online, you have still missed everything the teacher elaborated on during the lesson.

But your GPA is not the only thing that suffers — your social life does, too. Those shifts are lost time, time that could be have been spent talking with friends or going out somewhere fun. Lack of time spent together will cause relationships to suffer.

Plus, you can’t forget about the stress that high school already takes out of a person. You have tests, quizzes, projects, homework, and possibly a few strict teachers. Adding a boss and extra responsibilities isn’t exactly going to remove that stress. Don’t forget that the time for hobbies and stress relief is also lost so that the extreme amount of stress won’t be leaving any time soon.

This article was written as an attempt to save students from spending their entire high school careers being stressed about finding free-time while taking their ten-minute break in the barely functioning break room.

Live life in the use your independence in tandem with the lack of bills that you have to pay. Get homework done, hang out with friends and keep working on whatever makes you happy. Do not spend this crucial time bending over backward for a boss who could not care less about your mental or physical health. The opportunities brought along with high school will not last forever. They’re supposed to only last for four years, but who knows — maybe they’ll last five if you keep procrastinating on all those English essays.