Argument and Counter-Argument

I put a lot of reconstruction into my argument. I started out with just explaining how privatization has messed with the mental states of current students. It then evolved to the there are societal changes that have caused students to be stressed about school and I began to analyze technology and media's role in student stress. After struggling to find the answer that works for me, I came to an integration of everything I originally looked through. My topic is that anxiety is extremely higher than it was ten years ago, and why is this happening? My argument and angle is that academic pressure and financial burden is the highest it has ever been. The combination of these two is what is causing so much stress for students. These are only made worse by privatization. Privatization creates a divide between students who have the means to turn to their own private outlets to get through school, and those who do not have their own private outlets and need to turn to loan private outlets to pay for schooling. This goes further for those who have private resources like family support in comparison to students who enter school entirely on their own. That divide makes the academic pressure even worse because you are competing with an elite crowd to compensate with the financial debt that you will be leaving school with.  That is what my proposal fell to be. What is different from then to know is that I noted at the end of my proposal that on campus resources cannot keep up with students. I have since moved that to the front of  my paper, touching on that before I get to main topic. I use it to explain that students feel very disconnected from their schools because counseling is currently so poor. I then go in to privatization and how it is alienating students.

My counter argument seemed at first that it would be extremelt difficult to find, but in I stumbled upon it when I found a study that I first thought fit in to my argument well. A study looked at the effect of academic pressure on the health of students, but hardiness of personaility was factored in also. The study, Academic Stress and Health: Exploring the Moderating Role of Personality Hardiness, found that students who cite academic stress are more likely to report health issues, but those with more hardy personalities were less likely to report health issues. This counter argument is an argument that we hear every day. Millennials don't have the grit to deal with the stress they face. Baby boomers argue that the stress hasn't changed. This study is followed by several other studies that cite the same exact argument. I have trying to find a way to understand and use Dana Becker, so this is the perfect example. Dana Becker, in One Nation Under Stress: The Trouble With Stress and an Idea, can almost seem like this is for this argument as she presents this rhetoric in her book. She explains that stress is privatized, society has turned on the people and saying that the reason that people can't deal with stress is because they lack the grit and the strength to get through it. It is their, private fault. Dana Becker states that this thought process is wrong, that the more we push this on people, the less they will be able to handle stress. It is an added pressure that people are privatizing stress and blaming themselves for the issues that they have. This argument is enjoyable to turn on its head because even in the study mentioned earlier, the discussion section explains that in the second part of the study where they test health and stress, hardiness does protect student's health, that is not the case for stress. Hardiness is unable to protect students from stress, they experience it no matter what. Another counter argument to back up my point is from the New York Post. The article states that instead of bashing millennials, they need to be given tools to cope. Even if those tools are keeping themselves closer to family and support systems. A great quote from the article states, "But the spike in anxiety is a real issue, one that shouldn't be lumped in with their "omg! lol! i can't even," social ineptitude."