College Pressures By William Zinsser Summary

Improved Essays
In William Zinsser's article, "College Pressures," he examines the pressures that confronted college students in the late 1970's. Zinsser concentrates on four primary pressures, which are financial, peer, parental and self-induced pressures. Zinsser feels that these students are so much pressurized, but they ought to understand that there is no "right" approach to succeed, and a career does not need to be preplanned. He correctly gives an example where he calls personalities for guest lectures, and when these personalities say that they took up the career path after trying out various options the students get surprised. Zinsser rightly quotes, “They can hardly conceive of a career that was not pre-planned. They can hardly imagine allowing the …show more content…
Each of these pressures is very relevant and I am sure students face these pressures in any college throughout the country. These pressures may at times help students, but most of the times these pressure result in disappointment and sadness for students. The entire educational and career path is presented to students in such a way that these pressures become inevitable parts of their lives. He states, “One of the few rights that America does not proclaim is the right to fail. Achievement is the national god, venerated in our media - the million dollar athlete, the wealthy executive - and the glorified in our praise of possessions.” (Zinsser) Students are afraid of failing, they are afraid of losing, all these add up to anxiety and lack of confidence in students. Being aware of a problem is a first step to solving the problem. So students should be aware that such pressure me hamper them and their studies. Students should learn how to balance their lives and not be too stressed out because of the various activities that they perform. Most importantly, they should be aware that such pressure exists and not lose track of their dreams and aspirations because of the pressures they

Related Documents

  • Great Essays

    He describes economic pressure first, because this is not as valuable as the others. Despite the growing cost, there is plenty of financial aid, grants, and scholarship money out there. Zinsser brings his essay to a satisfying close by persuading his audience, the older generations, to take action towards making the younger generations more brave. For instance, “It’s why I think we should all be worried about the values that are nurturing a generation so fearful of risk and so goal-obsessed at such an early age” (38). Overall, “College Pressures” deserves an A due to its interesting topic and impressive organization using both division-classification and…

    • 935 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The article "Demanding More from College" by Frank Bruni discusses the issues involving college students and how they should address college. Bruni questions the purpose of college whether it 's sufficiently assessable or invariably worthwhile. One headline stated "College is a ludicrous waste of money." The main problem is that college students don 't expand their horizons. They attend college and surround themselves with the same similar clique that they dealt with in high school.…

    • 987 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    “What I wish for all students is some release from the clammy grip of the future. I wish them a chance to savor each segment of their education as an experience in itself and not as a grim preparation for the next step.” This quote blatantly shows how the author of this article wants to help college students. This information must be told because someone with experience needs to keep college students from cracking under the pressure. “I see four kinds of pressure working on college students today: economic pressure, parental pressure, peer pressure, and self-induced pressure.…

    • 1099 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    College Pressures In “College Pressures”, William Zinsser talks about the college pressures that most college students face. At the time, William Zinsser was the Master of Branford College at Yale University. He says that he sees four kinds of pressure that most college students go through such as economic, parental, peer and self-induced pressure. As I read his essay, I analyzed the effectiveness of Zinsser’s observation about what pressures most college students face.…

    • 1308 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    “They’ve let you know how they size you up, and they’ve let you know what you should value. They’ve given you a sharp and protracted taste of what they feel is good and bad, right and wrong.” (Edmundson 5) Expectation are set and one feels that they need to follow. In all actuality it should be the college students really pursuing their own dreams. Not the dreams that other have set out for you.…

    • 759 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    In the American society today, college has become a tradition. No matter the culture or ethnic background, it is deemed as the most practical method of succeeding in life. The importance of attending college is so evident that schools are now dedicating their time to preparing the students for the workload and content by the implementation of Advanced Placement classes. Furthermore, they create programs that are fixed towards encouraging students to increase their chances of getting accepted by participating in extracurricular activities and volunteering. Although some schools are not as equally resourceful and lack the necessary funds to provide students with the requisite circuitry to succeed in college, the pressure to attend in order…

    • 1007 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    In the novel, Overachievers: The Secret Lives of Driven Kids, author, Alexandra Robbins, argues that it is not good for the students to be under an extreme amount of pressure in school and I certainly agree with this statement. Parents are often the ones who place an excessive amount of pressure on their children to succeed, even starting before they are born. This pressure that parents place on their children can lead to immoral behavior, such as cheating. The overachieving students may come across as perfect on the outside, but by having so much pressure placed on them to be perfect, they may get into a mindset where they focus too much on comparing their standardized test scores and GPAs with other students’, causing them to be left feeling…

    • 1092 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Pope also explains how this issue goes beyond the inside of schools. For some children, pressure for success has already begun before they are even born. Parents are willing to do anything to help their child acquire the “best” education and end with the most success. With that being said it is very hard for most students to live up to these standards. For this experiment Pope followed three students from Faircrest High through daily life as a highschooler and came to these following conclusions.…

    • 803 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    College Anxiety: Can I do this? In the novel The College Fear Factor: How Students and Professors Misunderstand One Another by Rebecca D. Cox, the author argues to reclassify how the framework is organized, and how classes are instructed to better address the issues of those understudies who, 20 or 30 years back, never would have even pondered formal training after secondary school. Not only does Rebecca Cox this she also tries to reminds students that while understudy readiness is critical, more consideration should be coordinated toward what is esteemed in the domains of school instructing and school learning if genuine advance is to be made in understudy scholastic accomplishment. My experience at OCC complicates this because not all community…

    • 1282 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The pressure that school, no matter the level, puts on students is unhealthy. Students are stressed to the max trying to achieve certain goals set by society. Every student strives for a 4.0 GPA and a high score on standardized test, even though they go through great amounts of stress to feel they have reached those goals. While if you don 't reach those certain goals you will feel like you have failed and not truly been prepared for your future. Evaluating students based on standardized testing is a very poor and inaccurate way to determine their intelligence.…

    • 1029 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    The author states that most of the students do not desire to get a strong academic formation. When the essay states that “ In college, life is elsewhere”, Edmonson relates how students are more concerned about passing courses in college instead of learning important theory associated with their fields. I believe that this is a commonly seen event in colleges and as students we must be worried about working hard in our studies. Being lethargic throughout University results in cheating. The author claims how some students look for getting answers of an exam in a different way than learning from classes and lectures.…

    • 1167 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Superior Essays

    People face pressure in their lives every day, especially in college, because students are working hard to get a successful job. Why is the Massachusetts Institute of Technology the university with the highest suicide rate in America? Could it be because pressure, whether academic, social, peer, or environmental tend to affect young people in a negative way? By comparing and contrasting social pressure, peer pressure and environmental pressure in Lord of the Flies by William Golding and The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini, similarities are evident, such as the reasons for characters to associate with one another, characters craving acceptance, and new environments causing characters to act out. However, each novel has distinct differences such…

    • 1751 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    In the passage College Pressures by William Zinsser, he talks about college students and all the pressure they face that not only affect their education, but their personal life as well. In the text Zinsser identifies four kinds of pressure: Economic pressure, Parental pressure, Peer-pressure, and Self induced pressure. Zinsser’s claims about the college pressures students face are very accurate and relatable, not to just one student or an abundance of students… but all college students. College puts pressures on anyone. Some experience less pressures than others, for example some might experience peer-pressure while others don’t experience peer pressure because they are the individuals putting the pressure on others.…

    • 1062 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    As any student knows, grades are reflective of their accomplishments in a given class. However, grades mean much more to students than whether they know the material or not. Grades mean whether or not someone will get into their college of choice, whether or not they have to retake that class they had failed as a result of an emotional semester, whether or not they are hired for a position against someone who graduated with a higher grade-point average (GPA). Students are under more duress than ever to be academically excellent because of the mounting pressure in the American education system. This pressure is due to GPA inflation and expectations of above-average academic performance.…

    • 1071 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Today education is the most important part of our life because it not only increases knowledge, but also gives a better living. All the money making jobs requires highly qualified people with skills. Every fall, many freshly high school graduates enroll in college, with big dream and to achieve their goals. However, numerous students fail in college due to several reasons.…

    • 868 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays