I remember how short school felt retroactively once I started working, but I also moved up from 6 hours and 15 minute days with four classes of an hour and 15 minutes to 9 hour shifts with two 15 minute breaks and an hour lunch.
But like
>>713004424 says, the lack of homework made a huge difference. I didn't go home knowing that the day wasn't over, that I still had projects to work on and textbooks to read. I went home and I was done for the day, and not only that, but I had my own income for the first time in my life. Most of what I learned in school didn't help me in life at all, and I didn't have the money to go to a university with actual programs. Unfortunately my quality of life potential is really low as a result. I would have to live like a hobo for 5-6 years to be able to save up enough money to attend university in another city and do a worthwhile program for 4 years, but even then, lately everything I've wanted to do is getting overrun by AI replacing the workers, so I don't even know what viable future there is for me that isn't hard manual labor.
tl;dr More time as an adult than in school even with longer days, but your quality of life is shit and you have to sacrifice a good decade of your life just to get to a very precarious starting point