LOS ALAMITOS, CA — Many Los Alamitos High School students have recently been taking on jobs for the holiday season to make a little extra cash. 

During this time of the year, stores are looking for extra workers to fill up the empty spots that people are leaving so that they can travel around to visit family or vacation during the holidays. 

Many retail shops can only afford a limited amount of time to train and hire their applicants. 

“I just pulled out like a basic application and then I got hired the same day as my interview,” said Crystal Ruiz, a senior at Los Al. 

Ruiz stated that the training for her job at Home Goods took only a day and mostly consisted of how to work the cash register. Students working at the tree lot claimed that the learning process for the job was difficult at first because of the specificity of the processes.

However, managing to hold a job at the same time as juggling classwork and extracurriculars is no easy task. Especially around finals, many students are particularly tight for time.

“It gets hard trying to balance a bunch on top of five hour shifts right after school,” said Ruiz. 

Most of these jobs are in retail or food service, but a particularly popular opportunity is volunteering for the youth center in tree lots.

Volunteers work to help families and customers pick, deliver, and pay for their trees, which donates some proceeds to the Youth Center. While they also work on a strictly volunteer basis, all volunteers receive tips and treat their work with the same responsibility as a job.

This is why volunteer and seasonal jobs are so useful for students. They are able to use their extra time away from studying or finishing their homework to make some extra cash and complete volunteer hours at the same time. 

“I choose my shifts… when I know I’ll have less homework,” said Heema Pal, a junior who has been volunteering since last year. 

When the students deliver the trees, there are typically two students and one adult driving. They drive the Christmas trees out to people who didn’t want to or were unable to pick them up. 

“Your main responsibility is making sure you don’t damage the tree or mess up the delivery itself,” said Pal. 

 The holiday season is the perfect time for students to gain experience and skills in the workplace for when they have to apply for part time or even full time jobs in the future.