William Zinsser College Pressures Analysis

Collegiate Eases In “College Pressures,” from The Seagull Reader: Essays, William Zinsser explains the stress and obstacles college students face, he was a master at Branford College and was exposed to college student’s breakdowns. In the essay Zinsser explains that college students face four different types of pressures: economic pressure, parental pressure, peer pressure, and self-induced pressure. Zinsser is master of Branford College and he uses his first hand experiences with students to explain how the four types of pressures effect students. College students are too worried about their future and obsess over grades that they miss out on experiencing college to the fullest degree. His key point is that, although many students are motivated learners, students rarely pursue their passion, and this creates a joyless and poor environment for students. In his essay, Zinsser successfully uses irony to express the severity of self-induced pressures college students experience, and he effectively uses a metaphor to show the greatest weakness American education faces. Zinsser’s essay is effective as the author uses an ironic story to convey that students induce

Zinsser shows the poor environment and attitudes students are effected by and exposed to. Students need to abandon the mindset of viewing college as a competition for jobs and a direct gateway to a specific occupation. Students need to think outside of looking the best on their transcripts. Self-induced pressure needs to be reduced if a student wants to enjoy their college experience. Zinsser wants the principle of being an individual to be more present in students’ lives than the collective control that imitating other students can create. Students need to reconnect with their passions before they are thrown into the working world to receive the most out of their