More Pressure?

In William Zinsser’s essay, “College Pressures,” he discusses the pressures that college students faced in the late 1970’s.  Zinsser focuses on four main pressures, which include economic, parental, peer, and self-induced pressures.  Zinsser feels that these college students are under so much pressure, but they should also realize that there is no “right” way to get ahead, and a career does not have to be preplanned.  While I agree with Zinsser that these four kinds of pressures exist, I also think that there are new and different pressures today.

Zinsser says that we live in a brutal economy, when explaining why he feels that students are under economic pressure.  The costs for most private colleges, in the late 1970’s were about 7,000 dollars per year.  He says that students never got ahead, because after they graduated, they were working to pay off their loans (128-129).  I agree with Zinsser that there is a lot of economic pressure.  Today, costs for private schools are soaring at anywhere from 20,000 to 30,000 dollars per year in Minnesota.  Quite a jump from the costs he was talking about.  Most of us college students don’t make that much money each year.  Most college students I know are likely to be working a full time job, just to pay for their schooling.  And even when they do that, there are still loans they need to pay for all of it.  Zinsser never mentions that students did this in the late 70’s.  Although I know there were pressures when Zinsser was writing, I believe that there are more now, and there will continue to be a greater number of pressures.

Zinsser discusses parental pressure by saying that the parents are pushing their children to go into a high paying profession.  He says that parents wanted the best for their children by trying to get them into good professions, but some of the students wanted to do other things.  The college students wanted to fulfill their parents’ expectations, while they also knew that the expectations that are right for their parents, may not have been right for them (130).  One thing Zinsser doesn’t mention of the seventies, that is important today, is that most parents don’t pay for college.  It seemed as if most students back then had much of their education paid for by their parents.  This may be one reason that parental pressure is not quite as great today.  Maybe the parents of the 70’s felt they had a right to say what their children did, since they were paying for it.  Today, I don’t think most parents would have the right to tell their children which profession to go into, because most of us pay for it ourselves.  Many parents I know don’t have enough money pay for all of their children’s college education.  Yet, even the parents who do have the money to pay for it don’t always do so.  One possibility for this could be that education is valued less today than it was in the 70’s.  I think the parental pressure is different now.  Sure, many parents want their children to do well, so they are still pushing them in that way.  Yet at the same time, not all parents are helping to pay for it.  My parents want me to go to college, but it seems as if they don’t realize that it costs me money.  I have paid for this first year with scholarships and high school graduation money.  Next year, I will probably have to take out loans to pay for everything.

The third pressure Zinsser talks about is peer pressure.  He says his “students think that every student is working harder and doing better, so the only solution is to study harder still” (131).  I think this might happen sometimes now, but not nearly as much.  Most students now have so many priorities, such as school, work, sports, family, and having a social life.  This makes overexerting themselves with unnecessary homework unheard of.  I don’t usually worry about whether another student has done more work than I do.  I do what is required to get the work done well.  On some assignments, I just do what is required because I have so much other homework to do also.  But most of the time, I would rather write a good paper that is of average length, than a long paper that makes no sense.

Zinsser says the students at Yale pressured themselves also.  They juggled their school with extra-curricular activities (132-133).  I think most students try to do a lot of things in their life.  I juggle school, homework, work, softball, singing, family, a social life, and anything else that may come up every day.  When I am feeling self-pressure, or any other kind of pressure, it can help to have someone to talk to.  Sometimes, when I am feeling pressured with homework, I try to find someone at home who can help me.  Most of the time, my mom and dad are just as clueless as I am, so it doesn’t help.  It seems as if the students in the 70’s had many people to talk to.  They also lived on campus, so they always had peers and other people around to help them with their schoolwork.

Zinsser feels that students at Yale in the 1970’s had many pressures.  They had economic, parental, peer, and personal pressures.  I think that these pressures are very common for students in all colleges.  Although many of the pressures Zinsser writes about are the same as they are today, I think we have more pressures now.

(6 paragraphs, 937 words, 3 pages, double-spaced, Times New Roman, 12-point font)