Growth Spurts and Working

One of the first topics covered in Chapter 8 is physical growth. I do not recall when I had a growth spurt. I think this is because I was typically among the tallest kids in my class. I have never really had any issues with being tall other than the challenge to find pants that are long enough. There are a lot of tall people in my family and I felt like I was just as “normal” as the rest of my peers. During my senior year of high school I dated a guy that was a little bit shorter than me. He never admitted it but I could tell that he was bothered by the fact that I was taller than him. I could have cared less because I was usually taller than my peers.

In chapter 9 I found the section about part-time employment to be very interesting. I had never thought of part-time work as being problematic for students; however, I think I had mostly thought about students working during the summers. Growing up on the farm I worked during the summers. Depending on the time of year and the urgency of the crops I occasionally worked after school and on weekends during the school year. Typically my time after school was taken up by basketball and volleyball practice and games. I believe I benefited greatly from working during the summers. I think I would have just been extremely lazy had I not worked in the summers between school years. I can see where working excessively during the school year can create problems for students. I think this hold true throughout the college years as well. This above picture was taken one of the summers that I worked on our farm during college.