College Pressures

I chose to read College Pressures written by William Zinsser. The pressures of the college lifestyle have made the institution into a grind instead of a place of expression and learning. The essay made a distinction between learning and education. Zinsser expresses this throughout the piece, but it is most exemplified on page 483, paragraph 11 with;
"long gone are the days of the 'gentleman's C,' when students journeyed through college with certain relaxation, sampling a wide variety of courses- music, art, philosophy, classics, anthropology, poetry, religion- that would send them out as liberally educated men and women."
The quote above says educational institutions aren't putting out well rounded individuals that can imagine many different outcomes to a problem because they weren't able to develop those skills through taking unsafe or risky classes with no "real" benefit or clear goal in mind after the class.
The pressures to succeed have become so great that one is not able to enjoy their time and figure out what they want to do. The modern student has become so focused on the end goal they forget the present. no time for fun and just need to mindlessly grind away at studying instead of exploring what they want to do in their life. Parents and society do not help in this regard because the student feels compelled to do whatever it takes to succeed and not fail. As Zinsser explains on page 482 that the media is just as responsible for the idea that a person doesn't have a right to fail. I agree with this whole heartedly. One grows from failure much more than success. We can take the case of Thomas Edison as an example of this. After finally succeeding with his invention of the light bulb, he is quoted as saying, "I haven't failed, I found 10,000 ways that didn't work".
If Edison decided to stop and accept his defeat he would not have become one of the most brilliant inventors of the 20th century. Also since he did not give up he became successful. Things that come easy usually aren't worth very much. Yet again, I digress.
I think the moral of the essay is that we need to fail in order to truly succeed. We, as students, have lost our ability to navigate through tough choices and situations that involve critical thinking and risk. Zinsser talks about how the students he encounters are only looking for the straightest road to follow in order to be the most successful instead of enjoying the journey to the destination. so in reality the journey is the destination according to Zinsser. This is actually the first reading out of the Norton reader I have enjoyed.