Summary Of College Pressure

By William Zinsser

In the essay "College Pressure" by William Zinsser, he talked about the different pressures that college students go through that range from economic pressure, parental pressure, peer pressure, and self–induced pressure. His main point in this essay is that most people in college have no idea what their career is going to be because they do not pre–plan for their future career at this juncture. These students finish college under so much pressure to the point where they have minimal progress towards life after school. We should all agree with the author's stance about pressure because as a college student, I can relate directly to the issues and ideals Zinsser addresses. I also know the feeling of being under so much stress from multiple people while maintaining high grades and although I am in college, I'm also in high school so I am not at a stage in my life to properly decide on the fate of the rest of my life. Zinsser had stated that peer pressure and self–induced pressure are also intertwined, and they begin almost at the beginning of freshman years (241). I agree with what he had said because I've been in the Early College High School program since my freshman year of high school and the coursework is not typically high school quality so we all knew the problems that awaited. When ECHS first started everyone was so hard on each other because we were the first generation. Every day we would work together to help each other and even though we helped each other to succeed, we still tried to be the best of the group so we put constant pressure on ourselves. We did this because we didn't want to face the humiliation if we got kicked out or if we failed classes while everyone else passed. I was one of the people who put too much pressure on myself and as a result I started to fail. I was not failing just one class, or two, but I was failing five of eight. The poor grades led me to add on more pressure to myself. I felt more peer pressure than before and my teachers were pressuring me too. My peers wanted me to succeed because we were there for each other and my teachers all had one goal for me; to walk down the stage to get my diploma from ECHS, not from a different high school. I was placed into mandatory

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