Professor Stuart Tucker
English 1300-04
30 October 2016
College Pressures
College is a time of anxiety and panic for many students all over the world. In the piece, “College Pressures” by William Zinsser, there is talk about the pressures of college and advises how to handle these moments of breakdown. Through the late nights and tears shed, you have feelings of high doubt and stress. Zinsser points out the four main pressures of college as being “economic pressure, parental pressure, peer pressure and self-induced pressure” (275). The cost to attend a private college continues to rise as inflation rises as well. Without the finances, students feel they can never get an adequate education which, in turn, means they will …show more content…
Most of us college students do not make near sufficient money each year to pay for schooling. The average student takes 14 credits a semester. And even though students work, there are still loans they will need to take out to pay for all the built-up debt. Many students work full-time and part-time jobs while enrolled just to be able to pay for their costs of college. The job opportunities in the 1970’s may have differed greatly from the current opportunities. Many students who attend these bank-breaking colleges come from wealthy families, but the worry of student debt gets to everyone. Being a student athlete can make it easier because the majority of student-athletes receive a large amount of scholarship. Although I know there were pressures in the time Zinsser was writing, I believe that there are more now, and there will continue to be a greater number of pressures regardless of the financial situation any student is in. Being enrolled in a private school whose tuition is $49,000 dollars, and being enrolled in the nursing program as a student-athlete, I know how terrifying these pressures are firsthand. Zinsser mentions how students compare their performance to perceived thoughts of their peer’s performances which end up adding, even more, pressure and