<p>I am a freshman at SUNY Binghamton, one of the best public universities in the country. It was by far not my first choice. I begin in this manner not to gloat, but just the opposite - I acknowledge the wonderful educational opportunity offered to me, but I still have an immense amount of trouble adjusting.</p>
<p>I hate it here. Let me note right away that I am trying to transfer, I am just having so much trouble dealing with things in the meanwhile. Moreover, I am fairly satisfied with the academics - challenging classes, great professors and TAs. It's adjusting to the college life that's very difficult for me.</p>
<p>Where do I begin? I was born in Moscow, Russia, and moved to NYC when I was 10. I am a city boy in every sense of the word. I spent my last three summers at an international arts festival in Michigan, where for 6 weeks immensely talented artists from all over the world - musicians, filmmakers, actors, photographers, etc - come together to do art. The learning experience is unparalleled and the instruction is fantastic, but what I remember best was the friends I made from all over the world - a friend from Spain, Seria, Bolivia, Hong Kong. Diversity is a big deal to me. Meeting people that come from a completely different background from mine and sharing ideas is a really, really big deal to me. Needless to say, when I was searching for a college, I was trying to mimic my summer festival experience - a diverse population and a passionate, talented student body.</p>
<p>So, there is problem number one. I am in the middle of nowhere, and the student body consists entirely of New Yorkers - Long Island, Upstate, a few people from the city. The majority of the people here are intelligent (admissions is tough), but everybody comes from the same place as I. I don't learn anything new from the people here. Everybody is either from a farm in NY or a small suburban community in Long Island. There is no diversity, no spice, no excitement.</p>
<p>Problem number two is that I miss the city. I got together with my girlfriend at prom - I had known her all throughout high school - and we spent every minute of the summer together. I didn't see it lasting past that, but when it came time for me to go away, I couldn't let go. I was absolutely madly in love with her, and she with me. We decided we were going to make it work. I visit her in the city [four hours/$50 away] every two to three weeks, and we find ourselves to be more and more in love as time passes. The girl is my world, and although it is immensely hard for me to leave her to come back here, she is worth going through all the trouble in the world for. I'll admit that she is about half the reason I'm feeling as homesick as I am, but she isn't the entire reason, and that's important to understand. The thing here is, because I visit the NYC so often to see her and my parents [whom I love!] it's a little harder to adjust.</p>
<p>The campus here is crap. It is seemingly green, but all the buildings are gray, square blobls. The tiny town of Binghamton is crap and the weather is terrible - everybody acknowledges it. It's most often overcast and snows and rains a ****load. I will quote Wikipedia: "Binghamton is known for its heavy cloudiness; it is the seventh cloudiest U.S. city, and the cloudiest east of the Rocky Mountains." It's pretty depressing.</p>
<p>Finally, there's my roommate. We used to be best friends in HS, and when we applied to eight colleges each, we couldn't imagine we'd have the opportunity to room together. People warned us plenty - "don't room with your friends!" - but of course, we didn't listen.</p>
<p>We haven't argued once in three years, but when we moved in, we immediately had disagreements over who plays music out loud (I need complete silence to study), who keeps what in the fridge, whether the window gets left open at night (it gets really cold, but he likes the breeze.) We used to be close and together, now we barely talk (although we don't fight anymore). I wouldn't care less if he were just some guy, but we used to be best friends. I hate arguing with him, he starts yelling and treating me like a complete idiot, and I'm not the yelling kind of guy.</p>
<p>I'm taking a very challenging course load (21 credits) and I'm doing a LOT of music, so I barely have any time at all to hang out. I'm a pretty social person, but I've made few friends. I have time to go out on the weekend, but I haven't met anybody exciting at all.</p>
<p>Now, the two reasons this is REALLY getting to me:</p>
<p>I live an hour away from Cornell, one of my top choices, and a school where my best friend goes. I visited her more than once and had a fantastic time. The food is amazing (arguably best in the Ivy League) and the campus is breathtaking and inspiring. She lives in a single, which are abundant at Cornell. I came to visit her, and we went out with a bunch of people, some her friends, some she had never seen before. I got along with these people amazingly well. They are incredibly intelligent, yet still very modest. Moreover, everybody has a story, and there are very few New Yorkers. One of the people in the group was a Canadian engineering major who used to work as a chef, another on a full scholarship from Columbia (yeah, the country in the Caribbean).</p>
<p>Still, most importantly, it all comes together when I go home for the weekend every two to three weeks and feel so cared for by my parents and my girlfriend. I have my OWN room and I don't have to worry about whether I open or close the window, don't have to worry about paying for food, running to the library to study or print stuff out. I feel so cared for and so loved, so at home, because of my parents and because my girlfriend has become a part of 'home.' I feel like I may have moved out too early, and I sure as hell have nothing but studies to come back to when I head back up to college at Binghamton.</p>
<p>So, I'm working my butt off to try and transfer next year to a school like Cornell or Penn (my dream school), but if it doesn't work out, I am contemplating moving back home to go to college. It wouldn't be as well-reputed a school (probably CUNY Baruch), but it'd cost a hell of a lot less and I'd be back in the city I love at the home I love.</p>
<p>I'm having a very tough time. My studies are all I have - I think of them as my anchor out of here. Please help, share if you have been through something similar. I read up on being homesick, but it's way past the first three weeks, and going back home every few weeks is sure as hell not helping.</p>