My son hasn’t had lots of free time in college and didn’t have lots of free time in high school (high school swim team and club swimming and occasional work as lifeguard plus studying took up a big chunk of his time). In college, freshman year 1st quarter he began volunteering in the lab (he’s a chemistry major and they were working on something that he was really interested in). Starting 2nd quarter & continuing thereafter he began receiving credit for lab work. He’s in the lab about 5 hours a day. Add to it classes (which have ranged from starting at 8 AM to ending at 10 PM on various days), working out (swimming, biking and running) for club triathlon team, studying, and voluntarily coaching a swim class 3x a week. Not a lot of extra time. And he has a girlfriend. If he had a lot of free time in his schedule, a job with flexible hours would be great. But he doesn’t have a lot of free time.
Summers are different. Last summer he worked on campus in the lab and was paid. This summer he has a paid internship out of state.