College Pressures William Zinsser Summary

College is a scary and stressful undertaking. In William Zinsser’s writing “College Pressures” he talks about just that. Throughout this piece his observations and first hand encounters focus upon certain pressures that range from economically induced to self-induced. Mr. Zinsser shares his knowledge of these pressures by telling two stories about students who were affected personally. He also shares how he believes a majority of students take certain courses just to please their parents. The students have to choose between what their parents want for them, or what the truly want to study. Even though some of the students want to pursue their dream, the pressures that Zinsser talks about sometimes holds them back.

In his piece, Zinsser starts

by sharing what a few notes that were slipped under the door of a dean who worked at a college at Yale looked like. Some of the notes asked for help on how to pass the course, while others try to find excuses on why they shouldn’t turn in their work. Zinsser explains how these kinds of notes can be found from all over the country, but are mostly located at colleges with high academic standards and students with extreme motivation. These notes are just a peek into the world of stress and panic that the students are going through on their journey to success.
William Zinsser is the head of Branford College, which is a residential Yale college.

He lives on campus in the Gothic Quadrangle and has gotten to know the students who attend there well. Because of his interaction with the students and being around them quite often, this builds his credibility, or in other terms ethos. Zinsser tells about how the students he talked about in the first part of his writing went to their dean for immediate help, he gets asked by students with a more long term approach. You could assume by what Zinsser writes about, the students who come to him for advice are asking questions about their future and what career path they should embark

on.
While answering majority of the student’s questions, Zinsser says that he tries to let the students know there will probably be more unexpected turns and dead ends than they can imagine. He also tries to let the students know that is perfectly okay to relax and go with the flow. To his surprise most students don’t want to her such liberating news. They want a path that has all the directions and courses they need to take laid out in front of them. Although Zinsser has hopes and wishes for students to accept change and new things which might include slight failure, he claims our nation does not. Our nation is one that is based off of hard earned success. Because of such, Zinsser says he sees four types on pressure put on today’s students. Economic, Parental, Peer, and Self-Induced pressure are of those Zinsser talks about.
The first he slightly touches base on is economic. He share about how a dean once told him a story on how students used to ask things about the world and how they could contribute help, now they are just wanting to better themselves instead of others. They want to show whoever is looking at their documents or transcript, that they have academic excellence. In today’s society you don’t see many students taking courses that they might enjoy, instead they are taking courses they think will get them ahead or be the best to further them financially. Zinsser says he can’t really blame the students for that mindset because of the economy we live in. From tuition, books, food, and board, it’s easy to rack up thousands of dollars. Many students as well as hard working men and women today are joined together by the bond of debt.
Zinsser says that along with economic pressure comes parental pressure. He tells of how he sees students trudging off to their medical classes and labs. When Zinsser asks the students if they personally want to be taking such courses, some reply with “no”. The students who tell him that they don’t want to be in these classes have said that the reason they are in such rigorous courses is because of their parents. “Poor students, poor parents” is a sentence from his writing that can easily be related to. Students who read this piece can base it to their current situation and for that reason it is considered pathos.
Zinsser says the students are pretty much torn in half with wanting to pursue their hopes and dreams, or to obey and follow their parent’s wants and wishes.

Peer pressure is the third thing that Zinsser talks about. He says that peer pressure and self-induced pressure are closely linked, and usually found within freshman year. He believes that when one student sees another student working harder than they are and becoming more successful, the one student will try to work just as hard or more so. Part of the problem he explains is that the students are doing way more than they were even expected to do. They are going above and beyond the original assignment.

In the end, Zinsser says it is the students who have to decide if they are going to live out their parents dreams or make their own future. While trying to decide on this, Zinsser claims the students don’t have as much time for extracurricular activities. It goes along with the self-induced pressure because the students are constantly wanting to get ahead with whatever courses they are in. In the past students might have gone to school and had many different activities planned out. However, with the constant urge to be better and succeed, these activities have been and are getting cut

short.
Ending his piece of writing, Zinsser explains why he talked about the students who ignored the urges to go out and have fun and to take courses just because they wanted to. He did so because he thinks today’s generation was made so afraid of taking risks and failure so early on, that they are limiting themselves for future progress. He claims that today’s students are too obsessed with certain goals and need to relax. Zinsser takes strongly to the idea that there is no exact and certain road to take to get ahead. Instead, he says students should enjoy each and every bit of their college experience and see where it takes them.