People say high school  is a job in itself, but for many students at Travelers Rest High School, homework isn’t all they do after school.

There are students after school that have both the responsibility of homework and a job, while others even have a sports team on top of it. The average student is assigned three and a half hours of homework each day. Add that with the average working time of an hour and thirty-six minutes after seven hours of school, and the student is working an additional five hours. That doesn’t include the average time for sports and just leisure time of four hours. This means that for a working student athlete, it’s a sixteen-hour day. 

Brianna “Bri” Dunn (‘17) goes through this sixteen-hour struggle everyday of the week during her volleyball and softball seasons. Dunn also plays travel softball in the spring and fall. “It is very difficult and time consuming,” Dunn says. However another student athlete, Jessica Monroe (‘18) who plays soccer for the school, took a different stance: “I don’t think it’s hard having a job and balancing school work.”

For students, jobs are considered easier depending on the work schedule, such as working on the weekend nights in comparison to weekday nights. This statement is shown to be true. Dunn works at Pink Mama’s in Downtown Travelers Rest on weekdays and weekends. This schedule causes her to  rush straight to work right after volleyball practice. However, she says her boss is very willing to work with her sports schedule. Similarly, Monroe works at TReats downtown on Sunday’s from 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. and every other Saturday at the TR Farmers Market from 8 a.m. to 12 p.m. She says that working the weekends is not as stressful since she doesn’t have to worry about the nightly homework.

The responsibility of having a job isn’t for everyone. Jana Whitmire (‘18) says that she would recommend a job, but if she “didn’t have to work, [she] wouldn’t.” This expresses how big a responsibility it really is having a job.

As these students study hard for class, work hard on the field, and balance a job, they authentically show what it really is like to be a Travelers Rest Devildog.