Define stress:
Stress is the body’s natural response to a threatening situation, and stress causes the release of hormones such as adrenaline, that prepare the body for its instinctual response to a threat: flight, fight or freeze. The adrenaline causes processes in your body to change, for example, your breathing and heart rate quicken, your senses sharpen, muscles tighten and your blood pressure is raised. These changes allow your reaction time to increase, which could mean the difference between life and death. However, many people, including students, live in stressful situations every day, and this has a negative effect of their health.
Factors causing exam-related stress:
One of the main causes of exam-related stress is the pressure on students to excel in the exams academically. Pressure can be placed on the student by family or friends, as well as by the student themselves. Pressure placed on the student by family members is often the result of parents wanting their children to achieve better results than they did, causing unnecessary stress on the student. Fear of disappointing family members also causes high levels of stress for the student.
Certain expectations are held of students by their parents, such as being accepted into a certain high-school or tertiary institution. These expectations can be unrealistic and not be based on the student’s strengths and weaknesses. These expectations can also create pressure on the student to meet his parents’ expectations, which creates feelings of inadequacy when they can’t be met.
Pressure is also placed on a student by himself. The student believes that in order to be a good student, they have to do well at school all the time. If the student wants to achieve a certa...
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http://education.jhu.edu/PD/newhorizons/strategies/topics/Keeping%20Fit%20for%20Learning/stress.html
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The author believes that students in the current generation are under more pressure than preceding ones. “William Alexander, director of Penn’s counseling and psychological services stated, ‘A small setback used to mean disappointment…’ Now? ‘For some students, a mistake has incredible meaning.’” The specialists that the author chooses to cite are all credible, which helps to build her view on this subject. The research that Scelfo uses also illustrates the fact that a student’s family plays a big role in their overall mindset. For example, Alice Miller, a famous psychologist, observed that “…some especially intelligent and sensitive children can become so attuned to parents’ expectations that they do whatever it takes to fulfill those expectations- at the expense of their own feelings and needs.” Being able to support her argument with the findings of psychologists and doctors avails Scelfo in swaying the reader’s
Some freshman students might lack the motivation to do well in school because they do further the lack of appropriate role models or mentors in the Academic environment. These difficulties can be tied to lack of support at home the parents might not be concerned about their child education, maybe the parent lacks the ability to guide through college, the parent might not process having not navigated it themselves. The parents might feel embarrassed that they don’t have any knowledge to help them
Zinsser’s work entitled “College Pressures” intent to expose a critical flaw within the educational system, in hope that it will encourage students to relax when it come to their academic success. Zinsser’s is doing more than illustrates a difficult situation, he is enforcing new ideas and principle just as: academic freedom and freedom to explore career opportunities without judgement and criticism from the school system and their parents. By enforcing these principle Zinsser’s hopes to awaken a new era where students are free from pressured sales tactics from both parents and society when come to academic success.
Stress is a normal physical response to events that make you feel threatened or upset your balance in some way. When you sense danger—whether it’s real or imagined—the body's defenses kick into high gear in a rapid, automatic process known as the “fight-or-flight-or-freeze” reaction, or the stress response.
The “push to be perfect” (Thomas) is at an all-time high. Pressure for perfection from peers, parents, teachers and coaches is so unreasonably high that many students don’t think that they will ever be able to achieve it. A student feels that it is impossible to get good grades, be athletic, in multiple organizations, and most of all appear to be happy. Students have turned to cheating, drug/ alcohol abuse, and even suicide to try and cope. They are competing with friends for top spots, and believe that if they don’t beat them, they are a failure. Not only other students, but parents play a big roll, too. Their own parents and the parents of their peers will compare kids. New Trier High School’s Jim Conroy said that the biggest problem about pressure comes from the parents who compare (Robbins). With all...
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William Zinsser’s essay “College Pressures” emphasizes the struggles students have in trying to conquer the college milestone in life. Zinsser believes that college has lost the authenticity of the overall goal of gaining knowledge for one’s own interest, rather than the overall need of going. He sympathizes with struggles college kids go through and hopes to provide insight on the overall situation. One of his major points are that succeeding the first time is not always the best way in learning, and that sometimes students need to fail in order to properly learn. The author mentions the “Four pressures, economic pressure, parental pressure, peer pressure, and self-induced pressure” and how there are “No villains; only victims” that fall
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Article one gives the student’s point of view on how living up to high expectations can cause a great deal of stress. However, the second article explains the point of view from a parent, providing statistics on a parent’s level of expectation. The two sources are different because they provide information on both kinds of expectation; self-expectation and family expectation. They are common because the two article explain the affect that expectations can have on the student, both good and bad. They both supply information about the benefits of living up to a high expectation and also cons of living up to
There are multiple causes when it comes to stressed out students. First consider where the pressure is coming from for students to get good grades. Parents and teachers tend to be the main suspects. Parents want to see their kids succeed in everything they do and grades are no different. Some students see a bad grade as them failing their parents because their parents believe in them so much (Weissbourd, 2011). Teachers have multiple reasons why they want to see their ...
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