College Pressures By Zinsser Summary

In “College Pressures”, William Zinsser expresses his concern with society and driving people to a preplanned path and downgrading free expression and exploration. He portrays this to readers through literary techniques such as repetition, metaphors, and anecdotes.

Repetition

William Zinsser uses repetition to try to show the importance college students need to learning to relax and live their lives day by day. College is supposed to be this great experience preparing you to take on the world, but students are blinded by trying to fast forward to the future and are letting a bunch of opportunities fly by. Zinsser has a wish; a wish that he believes is naïve, but wants the world to see.

• “I wish for all students some release

We blame and label professors, parents, and peers as ‘villains,’ when there are no “villains only victims (465).” Students have now become self-destructive, perfect seeking freaks. There is now this extra emphasis on looking better and being what everyone wants. A student’s “transcript has become a sacred document, the passport to security (464).” The security referenced before is the need to have a good paying job and money to spend. Student’s stress that grades have become a marking of what kind of person they are such as, “A is for admirable, and B is for border line (465).” Through the use of metaphors, Zinsser shows that students are so obsessed with being the best that they aren’t thinking about other possibilities and are so driven to succeed following their single-minded

He gets the point across that there is no longer freedom of expression, but rather up tight students striving for perfection. Zinsser explains that the days of the gentleman’s C are “long gone (466).” Back then, student’s “journeyed through college with a certain relaxation sampling a wide variety of courses (466).” In an excerpt from the article, Zinsser talks about a brilliant artist who was willing to please anyone, including her strict father. Her father saw a future in medicine and law while she just saw art. She expresses herself and is growing as a well-rounded person, but because her father thinks art is “dumb” she puts it aside (466). This is a prime example of destroying self-expression. He defines a modern undergraduate “as a driven creature who is largely ignoring the blithe spirit inside who keeps trying to come out and play (468).” In theses anecdotes, Zinsser models his point by showing how these problems effect real college going students in this