College Pressures By Zinsser Summary

In “College Pressures”, William Zinsser expresses his concern with society and driving people to a preplanned path and downgrading free expression and exploration. He portrays this to readers through literary techniques such as repetition, metaphors, and anecdotes.

Repetition

William Zinsser uses repetition to try to show the importance college students need to learning to relax and live their lives day by day. College is supposed to be this great experience preparing you to take on the world, but students are blinded by trying to fast forward to the future and are letting a bunch of opportunities fly by. Zinsser has a wish; a wish that he believes is naïve, but wants the world to see.

• “I wish for all students 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”
• “I wish them the right to experience to trip and fall, to learn that defeat is as instructive as victory”
The idea of failure is not one accepted by Americans. Achievement is the national god, venerated in our media. Zinsser knows that his wishes will never come true because Americans can only accepts the perfect and the successful people. This means no student will ever under-achieve or stray to a new path.
Metaphor
In College there are many people who one can blame for their troubles.

We blame and label professors, parents, and peers as ‘villains,’ when there are no “villains only victims (465).” Students have now become self-destructive, perfect seeking freaks. There is now this extra emphasis on looking better and being what everyone wants. A student’s “transcript has become a sacred document, the passport to security (464).” The security referenced before is the need to have a good paying job and money to spend. Student’s stress that grades have become a marking of what kind of person they are such as, “A is for admirable, and B is for border line (465).” Through the use of metaphors, Zinsser shows that students are so obsessed with being the best that they aren’t thinking about other possibilities and are so driven to succeed following their single-minded

plan.
Anecdotes
Through the use of short stories, he compares today’s expectation for students to those of the past.

He gets the point across that there is no longer freedom of expression, but rather up tight students striving for perfection. Zinsser explains that the days of the gentleman’s C are “long gone (466).” Back then, student’s “journeyed through college with a certain relaxation sampling a wide variety of courses (466).” In an excerpt from the article, Zinsser talks about a brilliant artist who was willing to please anyone, including her strict father. Her father saw a future in medicine and law while she just saw art. She expresses herself and is growing as a well-rounded person, but because her father thinks art is “dumb” she puts it aside (466). This is a prime example of destroying self-expression. He defines a modern undergraduate “as a driven creature who is largely ignoring the blithe spirit inside who keeps trying to come out and play (468).” In theses anecdotes, Zinsser models his point by showing how these problems effect real college going students in this

generation.
Conclusion
It is now evident to readers that society is making us all into perfectionists. Parents are now trying to get their children ahead and on top of that, peer rivalry is at its finest. Students are blaming teachers while teachers are blaming students, but no one is admitting that it is society fault. Students can now hardly imagine the hand of God or chance as a possibility to nudge them down some unforeseen trail. College is supposed to be open-ended meaning that it should be opening up many roads. Now, students try to speed on one road trying to reach their destination before someone else does. You may ask yourself, why are students doing this? Is it to please their parents, professors or themselves? In actuality it is to please society and become that new success story, but the truth is society doesn’t need everyone to be like this.