Academic Pressure

Academic pressure. This is one of a student’s biggest causes of stress. These pressures mainly come from peer and parental expectations and from fear. Fear of failure and disgrace. These days, everything that we do in school is looking towards getting into a good college by aiming for a perfect GPA, loading on multiple class and most importantly studying hours on end in order to do well on standardized tests. Don’t you think that this is a little too much for the developing young minds of middle and high- schoolers? All this pressure on students also may lead to negative side affects.

These may include acts such as cheating on tests and rash coping strategies of depression such as suicide or drugs. A recent study in 2010 from the Rutgers Management Education Center stated that 75 percent of students that were interviewed admitted to cheating. Another study stated that the amount of student suicides has tripled over the past forty years. This is possibly due to that in the past, academics were undervalued and given little to no importance which was horrible because lack of education in people leads to very bad decisions altogether leading to a not so successful country But now, education is such a huge priority in America that kids are being over pressured and forced into horrible coping decisions such as suicide. These two pieces of data raise the question, is it really worth it to pressure the future hope of America so much that they are breaking academic laws and threatening their life through various methods?