Bba Students Going Through Academic Pressure

Research Paper:

BBA Students Going Through Academic Pressure

Muhibul Hassan Adil

ID: 071-168-530

English 105, Section 5

Maleka Sarwar

April 17, 2010

Abstract

This research paper is a study on BBA students going through academic pressure. Upon completing the research on 30 students from both private (NSU) and public (IBA) university, it is implied that academic pressure can have adverse effects on students. Questionnaire is used to survey the respondents and gather information mainly on how they cope with academic stress and the effects it has on their lives. Secondary sources are also availed to support the findings. The adverse effects include resorting to plagiarism, giving up other activities/interests, and doing things that can disturb bonding and relationships, and also lead to dreadful consequences like suicide. Some recommendations should be followed by the players involved in rising academic pressure to resolve this issue as much as possible.

INTRODUCTION

A boy goes to a washroom, locks the door, looks at the mirror, and screams aloud to let go his resentment. It is an existent scenario of a university student who gets this much frustrated as his parent incessantly inquires him about his academic performance. "This boy hates his father!" (Shamim F. Karim, personal communication, April 17, 2010). Ms. Karim is the professor and chairman of department of psychology in Dhaka University, and also part-time lecturer of the psychology course in North South University, with whom the boy shared the antagonistic relationship with his father that came out of academic stress.

The world today is becoming a very challenging place where competition in the job market is at its pinnacle. Every year potential future leaders are prepared and produced by different academic institutions who vie with all the other tough and talented graduates. In other words, if one aspires to successfully live a profession of his/her dream, then there are hurdles and hoops to overcome for which he/she is trained beforehand in relevant educational institutes and that often puts him/her to go through dire academic pressure.

Conventionally some pressure is put on the students from early age and the weight keeps on soaring and piling up as they climb the academic ladder. University students are basically the ones knocking at the door to the real world where they have to practically perform and show their true potential and knowledge elicited from years of study. This research paper would examine some of those students in Bangladesh who encounter academic pressure at this level. This report would study how students of different calibers cope with it differently. The pressure is prevalently made more intense by parents, teachers, and peers and can get so miserable and demoralizing at times that it disturbs the bonding and relationships within; often results in dreadful consequences. Besides, when striving to handle the load they miss out other activities which are also necessary to develop their competencies, be it academic or non-academic. Questions are also raised if such stresses are always worth taking or if they are just a burden that merely exhaust rather than hone the intellect. In this case, the roles of the parents, teachers, and friends to patronize the afflicted students are also a matter of study. In a nutshell, if not applied in the rightful manner, academic pressure can have adverse effects on students.

BACKGROUND

Academic pressure is a kind of stress felt by students when they try to academically live up to the expectations that are considered outstanding by themselves and certainly also by others. According to Wilders (n.d.) academic pressure is "the pressure a student receives from family or society that causes stress over school and future success." Stress is not always bad. Stress can be good at times as it is necessary to boost one's performance. Nist-Olejnik and Holschuh (2007) pointed out, "If you feel no stress at all when going in to take an exam, you may not be gearing yourself up enough to do as well as you could" (p. 101). The stress is worth it when one feels a great accomplishment after passing a difficult exam. However, too much focus on academic performance "can lead to severe problems" (Wilders, n.d.).

It is beyond the shadow of a doubt that university students feel stress about taking on new responsibilities when they graduate and proving themselves to be competent enough to vie with all the candidates in the job market. It is the pressure to succeed which comes from several factors. Some of the vital sources as observed by Wilders (n.d.) include demanding parents who keep on pushing their child to do significantly well in studies. Also, family background is a factor where particularly Asian families tend to value academics a lot and grades are seen as the most important part of life. On top of that, pressure becomes more intense due to a changing world where competition has gone massive and there is a desire for money for a better life.

Some of the secondary sources are reviewed to portray a fair scenario of what is going around the issue of academic pressure. According to Nist-Olejnik and Holschuh (2007), students who always did well in the past tend to set high academic standards on themselves and thus experience more academic pressure in the university level. The authors also pointed out that there are other stresses which add to academic pressure and that include financial stress of the money required to continue education; social stress that involves pressure from the peers and people in a society; and finally family stress which addresses a student's responsibility to get a good job and support his/her family (p.103).

On top of that, a research suggests that "stress resulting from academic pressure may actually impede academic performance and lead to problematic escape behaviors such as drinking" (Weiten, Lloyd, Dunn, & Hammer, 2009, p.79), and also plagiarism as per the findings of this research paper.

HYPOTHESES

Some hypotheses have been established regarding this research paper on academic pressure