Would most students still attend college if they knew the amount of stress they would endure during the semesters? And if they were stressed would the be able to handle it? Stress is a state of mental or emotional strain of tension resulting from adverse or very demanding circumstances. College students go under a lot of stress when they start colleges. The types of stress that college students deal with is academic, financial, parental and even self-imposed stress (Zinsser; Peer et al; Misra et al; Coleman and Trunzo). In college, students want to maintain good GPA and be successful. William Zinsser is a journalist who taught journalism at the Columbia University Graduate School and wrote College Pressures. When writing College Pressures,
Academic Stress of College Students: Comparison of Students and Faculty Perceptions is a study done by Ranjita Misra et al that compared the relationship between stress among students and faculty member and how it affect their lives. The researchers discovered that females experience higher levels of stress than males. They also discovered that females test higher in self-imposed stress too. In "College Pressures", a dean tells a story about a student name Linda, who was under a lot of pressure from her roommate Barbara. Linda thought her roommate was smarter and study more than she did. The same day her roommate went to the same dean, a couple of hours earlier ,and thought the same thing about Linda (241). In college, many students feel the need to do better than one another. This will cause a huge amount of self-imposed stress because one is putting a lot of pressure on
The Effects of Stress on Lives of Emerging Adults College Students: An Exploration Analysis is a study done by Justin W. Peer et al. that found a relationship between students and college stresses. In this study, they found out that how stress affected their lives. Sixty percent of college students were able to identify the stress and cope with it. Peers et al. also found out that some students got a positive outcome from stress. A student said " 'stress... drives me to get the task handled ',"( Peer et al. 93-94). Stress does not have to be a negative thing in a college students ' lives. It depends on a one 's personality and how one perceives
Imagine a student whose life is swamped with so many college classes and work duties that he or she must schedule some time to spend with family and friends. That is the situation that nontraditional college students go through every day of a school semester and still try to maintain a healthy family relationship. According to Jennifer Kohler Giancola and her colleagues, in an article titled “Dealing With the Stress of College: A Model for Adult Students,” Adult Education Quarterly, May 2009, “With an increase in nontraditional students attending college, there is a need to understand how work/school/life stress affects adult students” (246). Giancola and her colleagues’ statement are valid because nontraditional college students that work know how chaotic life is when multiple duties extend their entire schedule.
In the essay “College Pressures” by William Zinsser, Zinsser speaks about the pressures and anxiety that plague college students, all the while wishing that they had “a chance to savor each segment of their education as an experience in itself and not as a grim preparation for the next step.” Referring to the 1979 generation of college students as “panicky to succeed”, he lists four of the following stressors for college students.
Zinsser, William. “College Pressure.” The Norton Reader. 13th ed. Ed. Linda H. Peterson. New York: Norton, 2013. 380-388. Print
Students entering college for the first time become concerned with their college life. The students are on their own once they enter college. There are no parents or guardians telling them when to do homework, when to go to bed, or how to eat healthy. These students are now responsible for how they are going to succeed in school and meet their own needs. From the beginning, these students wonder what their experience is going to be like and are they going to handle the demands of college?
Everyone has experienced some type of stress in their life. Whether it has been from work, school, or trouble at home, stress is stress. If anyone had played sports in high school, you know the challenge of balancing school and sports. Imagine that stress, then multiply it exponentially. Everyone knows that college is a much more rigorous version of high school.
My Freshman Year- What A Professor Learned By Becoming A Student by Rebekah Nathan is about a college professor who investigates college students’ lifestyle in their freshman year. There has been many times when college professors have assigned a great deal of work and expected it to be due in a short period of time. To the professors, they may think a week is enough time. However, to students like myself it looks to be only two or three days. As college students, especially in our freshman year, we have a lot of pressure. We have about three to four classes, school activities, and of course, our own personal lives. Sometimes college professors may fail to remember that this is a point in student’s lives where they have a great deal of responsibility but little time to cope with the new circumstances. There is peer pressure, lack of concentration, and so much going on all at one time. Many times professors wonder why students cheat, be rude, less motivated, careless of their work. A college professor Cathy Small goes by the pseudonym name Rebekah Nathan in attempt to see what it is really like to be in a college student’s place.
4 Giancola, J.K., Grawitch, M.J., and Borchert, D. (2009). Dealing with the stress of college: A
According to the College Health website, “No one is immune from stress, but those entering the ivory towers of college are particularly vulnerable to it.” Attending college for the first time gave me a feeling of displacement, nonetheless, I maintained my sense of priority, I am here to learn, here to excel, and here to focus on my objective.
National Health Ministries (2006). Stress & The College Student. The University of Illinois at Chicago. http://www.uic.edu/depts/wellctr/docs/Stress%20and%20the%20College%20Student.pdf
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
Studies have shown that many college students are not able to handle the stress while in school, which hinders the ability for the brain to act in a normal way (Shahrokh and Hales, 2003). If a person is unable to deal with the stress that one is being faced with, it will have negative consequences in terms of causing several psychological disorders (Canby et al., 2014). Entering post-secondary education is a completely new environment for students, as it can be tough for many to adjust to the new surroundings. There are many factors that cause stress when students enter college, as it can include having the ability to deal with lower marks (Struthers et al., 2000) and having to create a new social life. Once and if a social life is established, it can cause more stress among students because it can lead into peer pressure that results in risky behavior. In particular, peer pressure can cause alcoholism or drug abuse (Seiffge-Krenke, 1990) or it can also cause unprotected sex. Not only does stress revolve around peer-pressure, but it can also be caused by headaches and lack of energy. If a student is constantly staying up late to finish assignments or to study, it can cause headaches from the lack of sleep; thus causing stress. With all the given factors, it can be hard to overcome these external factors which can ultimately lead to stress among
Driscoll, Emily. “Stress in College: What Causes it and How to Combat it.” Online posting. 31
Everyone deals with stress at some point in his or her life. Most people deal with it daily. As defined in the book called Principles and Labs for Fitness and Wellness, stress is, “The mental, emotional, and physiological response of the body to any situation that is new, threatening, frightening, or exciting” (Hoeger & Hoeger, 2012). This stress is caused by a stressor, which is also known as “a stress-causing event” (Hoeger & Hoeger, 2012). Stressors can take all different forms, from moving to a new town, having a baby, or even writing a paper (Boyd, Wood, & Wood, 2011). One major stressor in life can be going to college. If not coped with properly, these stressors can leave a person with too much stress that could end up harming them mentally and physically, such as developing an illness (Boyd, Wood, & Wood, 2011). There are several ways to cope with stress. Some healthy ways to cope with stress would be practicing emotion-focused coping, building time-management techniques, and practicing meditation.
Driscoll, E. (2013) Stress in College: What Causes it and How to Combat it, FOX Business, 73(12)
The academic pressure is one of the major stress factors in my life. The academic environment is very competitive and everyone wants to be the best. Not only are am I competing with my peers, I am also competing with myself. I always want to exceed my expectations. Which can cause me to become anxious at times. The academic pressure has many sublevels to it. Making excellent grades, homework, projects, essays, online work, class scheduling, exams, and many other aspects that are involved with school.