I see two kinds of pressure working on college students today: economic pressure, parental pressure. It is easy to look around for rebels-- to blame the colleges for charging too much money, the parents for pushing their children too far. But there are no rebels, only victims.
The pressure is heavy on students who just want to graduate and get a job. If I were an employer I would rather employ graduates who have this range and curiosity than those who narrowly pursued safe subjects and high grades. I know incalculable students whose inquiring minds cheer me. I like to hear the play of their ideas. I don't know if they are getting A or C, and I don't care. I also like them as people. The country needs them, and they will find satisfying jobs. I tell them to relax. They can't.
Nor can I blame them. They live in a brutal economy.Today it is not unusual for a student, even if he works part time at college and full time during the summer, to increase to 5, 000 in loans after graduation. Encouraged at commencemerit to go forth into the world, he is already behind as he goes forth. How could he not feel under pressure throughout college to prepare for this day of reckoning?
Along with economic pressure goes parental pressure.Inevitably, the two are deeply integrated.
Poor students! They are caught in one of the oldest webs of love and duty and guilt. The parents mean well: they are trying to steer their sons and daughters toward a secure future. But the sons and daughters want to major in history or classics or philosophy-- subjects with no "practical" value.Where's the payoff on the humanities? It's not easy to persuade such loving parents that the humanities do indeed pay off. The intellectual faculties developed by studying subjects like history and classics are just the faculties that make creative leaders in business or almost any general field.
Luckily for me, most of them got into their field by an indirect route, to their surprise, after many roundabout ways.The students are startled. They can hardly conceive of a career that was not preplanned. They can hardly imagine allowing the hand of God or chance to nudge them down some unforeseen trail.
大学生的压力
我发觉今天的大学生有两种压力：经济压力和来自父母的压力。环顾四周你很容易发觉一些叛逆者，他们指责学校收费太高，来自父母的压力太大。但他们不是叛逆者，而是受害者。
对于那些只想从大学毕业并且找到一个工作的人来说，压力是很大的。如果我是雇主，我宁愿雇佣那些有好奇心的博学之才而不是那些只选一些容易过的且能达高分的课程的学生。我认识无数学生，他们的好奇之心使我兴奋不已，因为我喜欢听他们阐述自己的观点，我不知道他们是得A还是得C，我不在乎这些。我也同样喜欢他们所散发出来的人性魅力。 国家需要他们，他们也会找到自己满意的工作。我告诉他们要放松，但他们做不到。
