I sat in calculus class waiting impatiently for the teacher to pass back my exam. I look at the grade and then instinctively look behind me. My best friend, Sam, looked rather pleased; she understood this math lesson, and her grade reflected it. ‘One down one to go,’ I thought as I looked to my back left. My other best friend, Lettie, looked confused. I asked her what she got and she said a grade that was lower than mine. I grabbed her paper in disbelief. I compared the grades, and my grade was in fact a point higher. Lettie tried to shrug it off. She said that she just didn’t get it, or that she didn’t care about this little exam, because there were far more important assignments in her life at the time. The excuses were always similar, but they never stopped me. I turned back to Sam with the reddest face I had and announced that I did better than Lettie. All of the blood rushed to my head and I became so excited. I couldn’t hold it in anymore; soon all of my friends that sat around us soon knew that I was smarter than Lettie, at least this time I was.
A calculus exam that I was proud of was just another perk of being best friends with the Valedictorian. Striving to do good in school was not something that I learned to do for myself; it was something that I did to compete with my best friends. Since ninth grade, Lettie was number one in our class. Her GPA was so high that there wasn’t much real competition with her. Everyone knew that she would be our Valedictorian. My other friends also started off to a great start with their class ranks. They seemed to finish out the top ten. During their worst marking period, they would peak at fifteen, but no higher. Their good grades remained constant throughout high school. Everyo...
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...uld still be my friends. The pressure that I put on myself was a personal choice that made me feel like a successful student.
As for my disassociation with the high school experience, I related most with Sam (from The Pact.) He was unsure of medical school. Thoughts constantly made him reconsider his life choices. He stayed with the dream that he created until it became the dream that he wanted to live.
I am happy to say that I still use positive peer pressure on myself. My best friends and I still communicate with each other. Although our dreams differ from teacher to fashion designer to engineer, we never stopped comparing work. Emails constantly consist of questions concerning grades and class work. As I type this, I think ‘I hope I get a good grade so that when my friends come home I can show them everything that I have accomplished in college thus far!’
A large number of college students who haven’t scored too well in college regret their grades. They believe that if they would have studied harder they might have scored better.
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...
This deep dive into self-knowledge occurred when I received my first progress report for second semester Ninth Grade Algebra. To say that I was put into a space of shock and awe is an understatement; I was outraged. I was completing all my assignments and turning in homework, but my poor test grades were obliterating my grade.
Peer pressure is doing something that is not quite normal, but your friends pressure you into the situation because they do it. This definition of peer pressure is something that is always happening, especially with the world changing each day. Things like tobacco, alcohol, and drugs, are all possibilities that peer pressure is related to. However, in the texts “Shooting and Elephant” by George Orwell and “No Witchcraft for Sale” by Doris Lessing demonstrate peer pressure among many thing; however, there are many solutions resulting in good things compared to the bad things that have happened. Solutions to peer pressure in these texts could be many things, but the three that would work best would be: ignore the person, walk away, and lastly, know that you should not do anything you do not feel comfortable with.
“Confidence is knowing who you are and not changing it a bit, because of someone’s version of your reality is not their reality” (Shannon L. Alder). Throughout teenage years, this is one of the most important life lessons that is learned, because peer pressure can cause you not to be able to find your true identity. For example, during my freshman year of high school; I was picked on by a student, because she was influenced by others. Peer pressure influences teens to trust their friend’s judgement and experiment with drugs and alcohol. Not only affecting themselves; but also the people around them.
With over three hundred million Americans and over six billion people worldwide parenting skills are essential to maintain a healthy society. Parenting involves many aspects and requires many skills. It is a time to nurture, instruct, and correct to develop fundamental skills children will need to be mature, responsible, and contributing adults to a society. There are four commonly identified parenting styles; authoritarian, authoritative, permissive, and uninvolved parenting. Of the four parenting styles, two remain on opposite ends of the parenting spectrum. These two styles; authoritarian, and permissive both have deleterious results that are often visible throughout different developmental stages, such as rebellious behavior. As well each style has its own advantages such as; acceptance by peers with commonality. Child rearing for most parents is an evolving set of skills. It could be said that, with any style of parenting, there is no explicit set of rules for every situation, and what works for one child may not be effective for another.
Many people experience all different forms of peer pressure throughout their life. There are different types of peer pressure such as to do drugs, or drink or even to just do something completely dumb or against what that specific person believes in. At a teenager age there are many more issues with peer pressure because in these years not only are we vulnerable and curious but the people known as our ‘friends’ have a lot of influence over us. Most of the time we do whatever it is they want us to do to either entertain them or make them happy. Yet that doesn’t mean after the teenage years that peer pressure is completely gone from an adults life. Many adults are continually peer pressured even into old age although it may be a bit more difficult to recognize the peer pressure because it isn’t always defined as peer pressure. In Shooting an Elephant by George Orwell the main character is really tested in a completely different setting than what he is used to. Also in No Witchcraft for Sale by Doris Lessing the main characters abstinence is tested. Although the main characters are in difficult situations in both these stories there are solutions for the main character in Shooting an Elephant by George Orwell and No Witchcraft for Sale by Doris Lessing.
Throughout the United States, there are a lot of individuals who experience peer pressure. Peer pressure usually happens around the time when children are turning into an adult. Many children struggle to say “No” when many individuals keep encouraging them to try something that could be bad for them. For example, a twelve year-old girl is hanging out with her friends and they are smoking cigarettes, they keep asking her, “come on, if you don’t try it, then you are not cool,” so the twelve year-old girl eventually tried a cigarette.
“Conformity is the act of matching attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors to what individuals perceive as normal of their society or social group. This influence occurs in small groups and society as a whole, and may result from subtle unconscious influences, or direct and overt social pressure. Conformity can occur in the presence of others or when an individual is alone” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conformity)
over and over in my head. I didn't want to give into them because I
As years pass, more and more high school students are continuing their education by going off to college. The importance of earning a college degree is higher than ever. College gives these young adults the opportunity to start a new life and work towards a career of their choice. With this new experience, these students have to learn how to balance their schoolwork, social life, and any other extracurricular activities they are involved with. As a result of this, students start to feel pressure from many places. Economic, parental, peer, and self-induced pressures have been problems faced by college students for many years, but since the late 1970’s, they have only got worse due to tuition rising, students overexerting, the use of
Teens are effected in so many ways by peer pressure is social pressure by member of ones peer group to take a certain action, adopt certain values, or other wise conform in order to be accepted. Peer pressure effect different teens in different ways. Teen are often being pressured into using drugs, having sex, drinking and bullying, the list goes on. When the peer pressure becomes overwhelming teens suffer great effects such social anxiety, depression some even result to suicide.
The first point I want to make in this speech is that peer pressure is NOT a bad thing. We all are influenced by our peers, both negatively and positively. It helps define who we are and how we feel about subjects in our lives. It is how we chose to react to peer pressure that defines who we are as an individual. Are we a leader or a follower? Both types of people are needed to make the world go round.
"Be yourself, not your idea of what you think somebody else's idea of yourself should be." --
"People! Come on! All of us are cutting history. Who wants to go take that stupid exam? We're going to BreadSticks instead. Let's go!" says the coolest kid in your class. Do you do what you know is right and go take the history exam? Or do you give in and go with the crowd? As you grow older, you'll be faced with some challenging decisions. Some don't have a clear right or wrong answer - should you practice the piano or text your girlfriend? Other decisions involve serious moral questions - should you cut class, should you lie to your parents? Making decisions on your own is hard enough, but when other people get involved and pressure you to make a certain choice, it can be much harder.