Homesick and Thinking of Transferring or Commuting

I’m a freshman at UCLA and originally from Riverside. This quarter, I have been experiencing severe homesickness, to the point where I have really bad anxiety and have become mildly depressed. I’m not to far from home and I go home almost every weekend. I try to stay here on weekend but it only leads to really bad anxiety.I have tried to keep myself occupied with school, my sorority, and work, but I always have home in the back of my mind. I can’t seem to get out of this funk.I’m also having a really hard time concentrating in my classes this quarter. Everything is not necessarily hard, it’s just that I’m always thinking of home while in class and I just get distracted, I guess.
I had so much fun at UCLA last quarter. Sometimes I didn’t even want to come home. My roommates and floormates are awesome and I spend a lot of time with my sorority sisters.But after winter break, everything just started to suck I guess. I don’t really have the energy to hang out with anyone. All I want to do is cry and go home. Every time I come back to UCLA on Sundays all I want to do is cry.
Don’t get me wrong, I love UCLA and everything about it, I’ve just been a very home-bound person. I’m very close to my family and I have a boyfriend back home, which is why it is so hard to be here sometimes. I want to stay at UCLA, but I also want to be home. I feel like the only way to do so is to commute from Riverside to UCLA, which I know will be an enormous pain with all the traffic and what not. I have also been looking into the vanpool service and metrolink service, but I feel like I won’t have enough money to pay for it.
My other option is transferring to UCR my junior year, since I missed the deadline to apply for next year. It would save me a lot more money and time because I would just be commuting from home, which is only 20 minutes away. But it’s such a big ‘ego’ thing on my part. UCLA is 5149869354073074 students dream school and I feel like all I’m doing is complaining.
If anyone has any advice, please do help. This has been a quarter long dilemma and I really don’t know what to do. Thanks.

Have you looked into counseling services at UCLA? It sounds like you may have some form of depression that is adding onto very normal homesickness.

Yeah, I’ve been talking to a counselor every other week. It helps, but I still get in this funk

I don’t think you’re depressed, and I don’t think you need formal counseling… I’m so tired of reading threads on here with people trying to diagnose everything as a condition. Homesickness is not something new… it’s completely normal, and virtually everyone experiences it at some point in life. It’s just a phase though, and will pass with time. In my opinion, the best thing you can do right now is to ride out the homesickness and commit to your new life at UCLA. Get out there and have some fun!

It sounds like UCLA is a good fit for you since you said you had a lot fun last quarter. Try and stay active on campus - join clubs, exercise often, and socialize. Also, while this may sound incredibly hard now, try and make an effort not to go back home so often. The sooner you do this, the sooner you commit to your new life at UCLA and start living more independently, which is going to be MUCH better for you in the long run.

Trust me, homesickness is normal and will go away in time. Commit to your new life and avoid giving into the temptation to go back to your old, comfortable lifestyle at home. You can do this, you just have to ride out the tough part. Good luck!

^^^you are right that homesickness is nothing new, but on-going lack of energy, wanting to cry all of the time, and distraction that interferes with your normal activites is not normal homesickness. It’s great that you are doing counseling and that may help. Since you are “stuck” at school for at least this year, try to think about the fact that you only have 3-1/2 months left until summer. That time will go surprisingly fast if you think of it in those terms. It sounds like you like the academics and like UCLA in general, but maybe you just aren’t ready to be away from home right away. Not everyone is geared to moving away right after high school. I would definitely try to finish out the year and try to stay positive about the short time left. Going home every weekend is probably not helping as you miss out on campus fun and making new friends. Try to force yourself to only go home every other weekend rather than every weekend and try to make plans ahead of time so you stay busy on the weekends you stay. One option you might think about (I’m not saying this is the way to go, but just an option to consider ) is leaving UCLA at the end of the year and going to your local CC for a year to finish up your non-major classes. Then you could reapply for universities next year to finish out your junior and senior years. One of my D’s did this- she wasn’t so much homesick as she found she did not like the dynamics of her original school. She was also worried about the “ego” thing and about people thinking she was a “loser” for leaving her prestigious program. She came home, saved a lot of money in tuition, saved money working, and ended up at a much better program for her for the last 2 years. It was the best thing she could have done and she looks back now and is so glad she did that. This may not be for you but is one option. Try to get thru this year (just a few more months!!!) and maybe by the end of the year you will have adapted better. If not, start looking at other good options that are best for you without worrying about what others think or about the ego thing!

I’d also like to point out to @fractalmstr‌ that she might not need “formal counseling” but that just talking to someone may help.

I especially recommend comforting yourself with how little time you have left until summer. I was really struggling with homesickness my first semester, but after a while it can get better. Don’t think of the year you have to wait as just delaying what you want to do, think of it as a time for you to reflect on what you really want, and if that’s to be found at UCLA or if another place really is a better fit.