Written by Jennifer Schein

Since the beginning of time, people have experienced certain pressures. As years pass, pressures have evolved from being just the stress of making sure our basic needs are met, to different things like school. Kids at school feel pressure to make good grades, get into college and just fit in. We usually only think about our personal pressures, but our parents and grandparents probably felt very similar if not the exact same pressures.

Adults at work often feel a lot of stress, but sometimes parents do not remember what being in high school feels like. They are sometimes not as sympathetic to students about grades and schoolwork as they would have wanted their parents to be. It would be a lot better for students and parents if both parties had more of a sense of what the other person was experiencing.

Students all throughout school have to worry about grades for colleges, and starting in high school most people start worrying about standardized tests like the SAT and ACT.

Not only do people have to worry about outward pressures from teachers and parents, but most people also put large amounts of pressure on themselves. Students constantly compare themselves with others, especially when it comes to who received the better grade, or who is ranked higher.

But is the pressure healthy? Students spend a significantly larger amount of time worrying about getting into college and the future than in the past.  Students feel a need to have a certain grade point average, combined with high test scores and enough extracurricular activities.

Getting into college was much less stressful for our parents’ generation because fewer people attended college, resulting in lower tuition and less competition for admittance. While tuition has increased some due to inflation, it has increased more because of the removal of a law that banned tuition rates at a certain level.

There have also been issues lately with college educated students not being able to find jobs, which serves to add an additional level of stress and pressure on students. Once they have worked all through high school to be able to get into a good college, they graduate from college and are unable to find jobs. Students need to be prepared for what is actually out there in the real world.

Unfortunately, there is not a lot we can do to improve the situation. There is already increased pressure on the United States to further educate children amidst reports that we are falling behind on test scores compared to China and other countries. The only thing we can try to do is work together, and hopefully lift a weight off the shoulders of students while still preparing them for the world ahead of them.