College Pressures

“College Pressures” by William Zinsser, the master of Branford College, one of the Residential colleges at Yale University, details the various types of stresses that today’s college students encounter. Zinsser claims that there are four different kinds of pressure: economic, parental, peer, and self-induced. The economic pressures are due to the ever-increasing high cost of a college education and the desire to get out of college with as little debt accrued as possible. Economic pressure is tied closely to parental pressure; this strain on the student is from parents pushing their children to become what they, the parents, want them to be because they are paying for the education. This causes the students to be divided on whether to do what they want to do or what their parents want them to do.

Peer pressure and self-induced pressure are closely tied together because as the students see their peers succeeding it will drive them to do better than their peers in combination with their own already high goals and aspirations driving them to continually want to outdo what they have done in the past. Zinsser encourages students that there is more than one way to succeed and that it is important to relax during college and not get overwhelmed by all of the tension and stress. He also emphasizes the importance of making mistakes in the name of learning. By establishing authority on the topic of college pressures, implementing logical, consistent reasoning, and utilizing additional supporting evidence to bolster his argument, Zinsser delivers an extremely effective essay with “College Pressures.” In order to deliver an effective essay one must be viewed as an authority on the topic. Authority is needed so that there is trust between the audience and the author. Zinsser is undoubtedly an authority on the issue of college pressures because he deals with college students on a daily basis through his job as master of Branford College. He knows what he is talking about in the essay because he lives right on campus and being in the midst of the students helps them deal with the pressures that they encounter. Zinsser uses logical, consistent reasoning from the beginning of his essay to the end. The thesis is clearly stated after Zinsser establishes his authority and audience for the essay. The rest of the essay follows the well-laid plan that Zinsser sets forth in his thesis; each main idea is consistent with the thesis. Under each main idea the use of further additional details, first-hand experiences and examples, further bolster Zinsser’s argument and adds to clarity of the essay. The audience of the essay is obvious through its entirety as Zinsser continually references examples and sources that would pertain to college students and the other people that are in their journeys through higher education. The purpose of the article is to make students aware of the pressures that they will face in college as well as to help them avoid the pressures by relaxing and not focusing on the pressures that are around them. Zinsser makes his purpose clear by using a straight forward explanation of his “wish for all students” to be able to not focus on the present only as a way to get somewhere in the future, but rather to enjoy the present through successes and failures. To develop a fully effective essay, Zinsser uses additional support evidence. One vital form of this additional support evidence is quantitative data. In the discussion of the need for students to look better in hopes of getting into better medical schools and law schools, the addition of the odds of getting into Yale Law School and Harvard Law School vividly displays for the reader the type of self-inflicted pressure that Zinsser speaks about. When talking about the economic pressures for students, the addition of actual numeric values for tuition costs as well as the statistic that “tuition covers only 60 percent of what it costs to educate a student” gives the reader a better grasp of the actual pressures that the articles speaks of. In addition to the quantitative data, the use of real life examples as well as information from other authorities greatly adds to the effectiveness of the overall essay. The example of freshman students, Barbara and Linda, perfectly illustrates the kind of peer pressure that Zinsser speaks about. The other example of the student that wants to be an artist, but is pressured by her father that does not approve of her occupational decision excellently depicts the parental pressure that is talked about in this essay. This advisory and informative essay gives its reader a better understanding of the topic at hand. College students, parents, and professors would be able to get vital information from this essay. Zinsser’s essay beautifully and effectively shows the pressures of a college student by establishing authority on the topic of which he so vividly speaks, using logical, consistent reasoning, and adding supplemental evidence from outside sources and through personal experiences.