College Pressure at Lehigh University Essay

In College Pressures, author William Zinsser spends nigh of the time talking active students wedges, peculiarly in the 60s and 70s, based on his experience at Branford College at Yale University. The article shows that students are facing pressures in lots of aspects, much(prenominal)(prenominal) as economic, parental, peer and self-induced aspects. However, these pressures are non rare in just a few universities. Economic pressure, parental pressure and peer pressure is exhibit even in a prestigious university like Lehigh. Pressure is the new disease that is spreading through many universities and causing students to lose sight of the essential purpose of school by focusing only on turn up scores.To begin with, the tuition of Lehigh University increases each year, students economic pressure goes up as well. Since students dont earn too much m singley, they have to plan each use of m oney carefully. For instance, in order to save money, students defile e-books instead of t extbooks, buy things on Amazon, and sell things they dont use anymore on E-bay. They have to save money for pursuing high degrees later. It seems that the biggest pressure most students confront is the economic pressure. As Zinsser mentioned in the article, The pressure is almost as heavy on students who just indigence to graduate and get a job. (Zinsser, 1979, p.73) For international students, parents pay a lot for their children to study abroad because they want them to get a better education and thus lay a goodness foundation for their future. Studying in America costs lots of money, therefore, students have more pressure and fight themselves to study harder. Additionally, competition for jobs and internships actually starts from freshman year. Chuxin, one of my friends at Lehigh University, goes to career services frequently to seek internships.I asked her why, and she said its better for us to care astir(predicate) our career since freshman year. Through internships, we ap prise gain experiences for when we are looking jobs after graduation and add some excellent items to our resume as well. This obsession with getting a job as soon as possible is due to the desire to lower the economic pressure on the family of student. Moreover students have to face reality and make the lift out decision for their major and future direction. Sometimes a secure job is much more important than personal interest. As an international student in Lehigh University, I sometimes questioned myself about my purpose of studying abroad. Since seeking for good jobs has been a cruel race for undergraduate students in recent decades, pursuing higher GPA in college has truly stressed them out. Secondly, the parental pressure is another factor that is causing students much distress.One simple example, comparing their children to other children is one favorite way for parents to encourage their children, but this behavior sometimes can annoy children. Even though sometimes parents d ont intend to push their children, the children feel even more pressure. Parents work hard to pay for their sons and daughters therefore, students should work harder to repay them. Take me as an example. When I was young, my parents divorced, eventually, my mother became a businesswoman and raised me up all by herself. I exert myself to get good grades so that I can return what she offered me one day. Hence, when getting bad grades on examinations, I feel sad and blame myself because I disappointed her, and because of my uselessness. For this reason, when I get bad grades, it will always be a long time for me to refresh the emotion. Furthermore, parents like to make choice, which in their mind, that considering the best for childrens future.My cousin, dreams to be an engineer, applied Lehigh University. Instead, however, her mother wants her to be a doctor because doctor has high social status, see by others, and earns higher salary. She was matriculated by Case Western University already, which is good at medicine, but she is still waiting for the result of Lehigh University. She told me that shes nervous because she doesnt want to be a doctor at all. This creates the scenario in the article, where Zinsser said It is easy to look around for villains to blame the colleges for charging too much money, the professors for assigning too much work, the parents for pushing their children too far, and the students for driving themselves too hard. But there are no villains, only victims. (1979, p.73) Not only do students have to worry about parental pressure they are also concerned with peer pressure. From what I observed, half of students come with AP attribute. I was once proud of myself because of the superiority 14 credits in AP.Recently, however, I know that two of my friends already have 36 and 37 credits, and a few have more. One of my friends said to me Hurry up, whence we can graduate together I feel so nervous because everyone pursuits the higher-level faculty member performance and I stressed out because of the drastic competition. About 70 percent of my friends will go to summer school in the coming break, either in China or at Lehigh University. It seems that graduating in four age cant satisfy us anymore only if we study harder can we chase others rate of progress. Since competition among students becomes more severe, it causes peer pressure. Also, students care about each others study.One of my friends complains to me that her roommate cares her way too much. Her roommate always asks her where she is heading up to or what she is studying for. When the examinations grade come out, she asks my friends final grade but doesnt tell my friend hers. This kind of situation happens not rare. Students are raise in compare others grade with their own. In order to get greater achievement in study, students have to make the balance amid time to study and time to do the activities. One of the students I know, for the sake of pursuing a higher GPA in this semester, has even give up the time for doing sports and participating extracurricular activities and dedicates his time to study to improve his academic performance. From my personal perspective, students will stress out by doing these kinds of things.I have a friend named Kai. He is a sophomore and has double major in mechanical engineering and electrical engineering. He overloads several credits each semester and the most important is that he got a 4.0 GPA in freshman year. Therefore, he becomes the target for all freshman students. When he walks on the street, some people, even not familiar with him, always stop him and ask him how he handles the study. We once chatted, and he told me he is just interested in engineering and wants to obtain real knowledge. He just does what he likes and is not the kind of person who succeeds by studying hard for tests. While, pressures young people face become universal today.Pressure on students is an epidemic in Lehigh Univ ersity basically in three reasons economic pressure, parental pressure and peer pressure. These are pressures that are conspicuously faced by a large number of students, and stress is more likely based on students academic study. There are still some other pressures caused by professors, friends or even students themselves. Pressure is not totally bad because it can motivate students to move forward and explore themselves better nevertheless, students cant let academic performance dominate their entire campus life, and its good for them to relax a little bit otherwise, students sacrifice their education by becoming skilled test takers rather than truly gaining any knowledge in college.ReferenceZinsser, W. (1979). College Pressures. Blair and Ketchums Country Journal, 6(4), 7278.