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College Pressures William Zinsser Summary

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In “ College Pressures” by William Zinsser, he discusses four important pressures that college students tend to deal with negatively on a regular day basis. According to Zinsser, the four important pressures that college students face are economic, parental, peer, and self-induced pressure. Zinsser presents great examples of college students stressing over the different kinds of pressures that he talks about. He shows how the pressures are affecting the students negatively. The students are surrounded by pressures all the time in college that it reflects them trying to beat their own pressure. Many students are worried about their next grade, their next assignment and are always trying to outperform other students in every chance they get. There are so many things that has changed in college from 1970’s to 2000’s. Also with college changing, the pressures …show more content…

I feel like this pressure is very important and is probably considered one of the most challenging one. Many students put themselves in this pressure because they want to be the best. Students always want to be the best one on the campus so they over exceed their requirement. Students compete with each other in everything that is related to academics or anything. Students think everything's a competition and the more work you do, the better you will be.“ Part of the problem is that they do more than they are expected to do. A professor will assign five-page papers. Several students will start writing ten-page papers to impress him.” ( Zinsser 440). This pressure could get very intense because it will continue to rise as years go by as things get harder year by year. I feel like college students choose to get this kind of pressure because they choose to work harder than others and want to be the best they could be. They want to impress their professors and students want to be the best out of everyone so they could get the best grade

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In the article, “College Pressures,” William Zinsser discusses the many struggles college students face while trying to focus on their studying. He convinces the reader of his point by using different types of rhetorical strategies. Zinsser’s usage of the rhetorical strategies such as getting straight to the point, quoting, paragraphing, the use of word pictures, and choosing a title was effectively done in his article to persuade his reader of the struggles faced by college students. The author did not waste anytime getting to the main point in his article, which is effective because it makes me interested in what he had to say.

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As the author mentioned in the article, “ pressure of perfection’’ can have tragic consequences. According to the article suicide rates for 15 to 24 years old have risen, and suicide remains the second leading cause of death for college students. I kind of agree to this. Of Course, pressure on college students can be tragic but I don’t seem to agree why would students commit suicide.

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While the ever increasing pressures and cost of a college education seem to be a recent event, they problems have persisted for many decades. In 1979, William Zinsser wrote “College Pressures” in order to portray the daily struggles of college students and argue how students see college differently in the modern era. Zinsser stresses how college has changed from being an institute purely focused on higher learning to one of almost strictly vocational purposes. He argues that modern students equate college degrees more with higher paying jobs than as a symbol of knowledge in a specific field, and that these pressures to succeed greatly impact the student’s health. Through my own college experiences, I can certainly verify that college is more

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In College Pressure, William Zinsser, the author, begins his essay with scribbling notes from wretched supplicants who are facing college pressures. Zinsser hypothesizes there are four types of pressure students face while in college: economic pressure, parental pressure, peer pressure, and self-induced pressure. The first pressure he talks about is economic pressure. The author tells readers a shift occurred to students’ values regarding the college experience. Students began to focus on looking better on paper than in person.

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