Homesickness
Lots of college students experience homesickness at some point during their college years. Typically, homesickness occurs in students who are:
- Coming to college for the first time
- Returning from weekends at home
- Returning from school breaks (long breaks tend to be worse)
- Suffering personal losses like the death of a family member
- Worried about family members at home who are sick or unhappy
- Unsure that college--or THIS college--is the right place for them
- Afraid they won’t fit in or won’t do well in school
Homesickness is not the same as depression, although it can feel very similar: you may feel sad, scared, and lonely--and like no one really cares EXCEPT the people at home. One of the worst feelings associated with homesickness is feeling like you’re the only one who feels this way. But that’s just not true: homesickness is common, but students tend not to talk about it because they’re embarrassed and mistakenly believe they’re alone in feeling this way.
Home feels good to us (most of the time, anyway!) because we know it and our family so well. So to combat homesickness, you need to develop familiarity with your new surroundings and the people around you. It also helps to surround yourself with favorite items from home.
Here are some ways to combat homesickness:
- Bring familiar things from home: a favorite comforter, pictures of your family and friends, a poster you really like. Resist the temptation to buy everything new for your dorm room!
- Get involved!!
- Go to different club and organization meetings to find one you really like; then join.
- Volunteer on campus or in the community.
- Talk with your roommate, other people on your hall, or your RA about how you’re feeling.
- Do something you enjoy and used to do when you were at home. If you liked to knit at home, then knit at school. If you liked to jog or go to the movies, do the same at school.
- Get to know the area--both the campus and town. Find the drugstore, the video store, the bank, a good pizza place, etc. Even better: invite someone else to go exploring with you!
- Resist the urge to go home every weekend. It’s ok to go home once in a while, but if you’re always gone, you’ll never get to feel like college is your “home”--or at least your “temporary home.”
- Take out your calendar and mark down school vacations and planned visits home. Then remind yourself that it’s only “X days” until home. You’ll find that you will rarely have more than 45 days between visits home. And if “45” (or however many days) seems like a lot--imagine if you had that many dollars or days until graduation: the number doesn’t seem so big then!
- Stay in touch with family and friends. Be careful not to run your phone bill up high, though. Bills can accumulate fast! Use the alternatives to telephoning: e-mail, instant messenger, and--yes--even snail mail!! (Parents--send cards and letters through regular mail so your student can have something from you to keep and hang on their bulletin boards as a reminder of you.)
- And you can always come see a counselor in the Counseling Center. Services are free and confidential. Just call x. 4751 to schedule an appointment. If you don’t want to come to the Counseling Center, consider talking to your advisor, another faculty member, the Chaplain, or someone else at the University whom you trust.
Bradley, 2002
