William Zinsser College Pressures Analysis

Many college students face or feel some kind of academic pressure by graduation. Author

William Zinsser wrote, “College Pressures,” published in 1979 in the magazine Country Journal.

He insightfully complains that America does not proclaim the right to fail and the young are

becoming old. His wish is for all students to have some release from their grip of their future. He

strongly expresses that he wants students to have a chance to enjoy each part of their education

and experience in itself, not just as a break for the next stop. Zinsser expresses his personal

desires for students to trip and fall, and to learn that defeat is as instructive as victory.

In his article, Zinsser sets the stage with several examples of notes written to

the Dean of
Bradford College that consisted of explanations and excuses from many students. Zinsser shares
these messages to help explain and make his points more realistic. The author clearly connects
on a personal level by being a master at Bradford College where these students’ notes had been
written. A survival solution Zinsser quoted, “I try to remind them that the road ahead is a long
one and that it will have more unexpected turns than they think.”
Throughout this article, Zinsser states four kinds of pressures working on college
students. The first proven pressure is a economic pressure. The author uses a personal experience
of his for his, evidence. The authentication he uses is a conversation between him and one of his
students.
“ Do you want to go to medical school?” He asked them.
“I guess so,” they say, without conviction or, “not really.”
“Then why are you going?”
“Well my parents want me to be a doctor.

They’re paying all this money and…”

Zinsser expressed that parents and students are caught in one of the oldest webs of love and

duty and guilt. Zinsser uses many personal experiences which strengthens and helps support this

pressure.

Throughout this article, Zinsser describes another one of his proven college pressures.

The one that he describes next is peer pressure. He stated how peer pressure is intertwined with

self-induced pressure, and he continued to use his personal experiences to prove and express his

points. Zinsser explains, “I had a freshman that I’ll call Linda,” one dean told me,” who came in

and said she was under terrible pressure because her roommate, Barbara, was much brighter and

studied all the time. I couldn’t tell her that Barbara had come in two hours earlier to say the same

thing about Linda.”

The final pressure that Zinsser discusses is the parental pressure. He first explains how

parental and economic pressures are very comparable and intertwine. The author explains,” The

parents mean well; they are trying steer their sons and daughters towards a secure future.” The

authors goal in stating this is to show that parents cannot just play a positive role but also

a
negative role. Later in his passage, the author says,” they are too young to be prisoners of their
parents’ dreams and there classmates’ fears. They must be jolted into believing in themselves as
unique men and women who have the power to share their own future.” Zinsser’s proofs of these
statements are continually backed up by the students he is surrounded by. His passion in voicing
these pressures are inflicted on students to show a clear outcome of having faculties that will
create leaders in business or many parents that point toward a specific profession, courses such
as pre-law, pre-med, ECT. According to Zinsser this is called “pre-rich.
Zinsser quotes a powerful statement from Carlos Hortas adding to his passion and appeal
to students to grasp the effect of how students look at college and their future.
“College should be open-ended: at the end it should open many, many roads. Instead,
students are choosing their goal in advance, and their choices narrow as they go along. It’s
almost as if they think that the country has been codified in the type of jobs that exist- that
they’ve got to fit into certain slots. Therefore, fit into the best-playing slot. They ought to take
chances. Not taking chances will lead to a life of coreless mediocrity. They’ll be comfortable.
But something in the spirit will be missing.”
Zinsser effectively makes his opinions know throughout his whole article. His
introduction has an almost humorous appeal which creates a catchy and realistic connection with
especially with student readers. He writes as if all students are in the same panicky, overwrought,
materialistic, and stressed out position. Zinsser goal is to make the readers think “outside the
box,” “break the circles,” and realize that there is no “right” way to get ahead.
Although, at the end of his article, Zinsser loses the effectiveness by retracting his ideas
of how students are narrow minded concerning academics. He loses some of his appeal to inspire
students in his ideas. The author returns back to a softer approach by expressing sincere worry
and concern for this generation being so fearful of risk and so “goal-obsessed” at such a young
age.
Though Zinsser starts his article with humor, real stories, and personal experiences,
readers can grasp his ideas by the end of this article by seeing his true concerns and passions for
his own students. Zinsser continues to the completion of his article explaining his concerns of
students’ pressures to have a pre-planned career without any idea of going down a unforeseen
trail.