CHS senior Jordan Clemetson knows how hard it can be to fit a job into a schedule. But he does it anyway, because he enjoys his work there and it’s meaningful to him.

During the pandemic, he wanted to have something productive to do besides school, so he started searching for a job.

“When you’re looking for a job, it’s important to focus on something that you’d be interested in rather than filling your time for the purpose of having a job,” Clemetson said. “For me, I started looking around for internships, particularly in physics, because that’s what I want to do in college, and I wanted more of an experience of what it would be like.”

He ended up getting a job with the University of Michigan physics department. There, he’s an assistant in research for a team that’s making virtual reality laps for physics classes to make it easier for high school students who are starting out in physics.

“I know a lot about what it’s like to start out in physics and be really confused about everything that’s going on,” Clemetson said. “Working on this project is kind of like allowing me to contribute to some things that I would like to give other students the opportunity to do. It’s something that I’m interested in, as well as something I can use my time wisely for.”

Clemetson doesn’t have specific times he needs to go into an office or hours he needs to work; he just works on it whenever he has free time.

“I don’t have as hard of a schedule as I thought I would, which is part of why this job works really well for me,” he said. “It’s something that I can do that’s kind of like a break almost, because I enjoy it and I can set aside an hour or two in my schedule to work on it.”

Clemetson believes young people in the workforce have improved in motivation and drive and have been able to meet the demands of a job.

“One of the difficult things about it is that a lot of people, particularly older adults, aren’t used to having younger children work alongside them in the workforce,” Clemetson said. “It’s not just with my job, I’ve heard some of my other friends mention it, like they’re working with people who are a good deal older, who aren’t used to the way that the job market has changed, particularly for high school students. I found that high schoolers right now are a lot more motivated to go and get started in their careers and everything, especially since college prices have gone up so much. So, the difference in motivation between high schoolers now and the people who we work with who are much older, is very different than when they were in high school”