severe homesickness

Student Lounge College Life
1

<p>i'm a freshman at an east coast school, but i live on the west coast. going home for the weekend is obviously not an option for me. i only come home on breaks. now that i've been home 2.5 weeks and have completely settled back into my comfort zone here at home, i'm absolutely dreading going back to school. i won't be able to come home for 1.5 months once i leave! i know it could be worse (we have close family friends from india who go to school in the us..they only go home once a year), but i'm really struggling with the fact that i can only come home every other month. </p>

<p>does anyone who couldn't/can't go home on the weekends have any advice?</p>

<p>i did bring some of my posters and room decorations from home to make my dorm feel more home-y. i call my parents every night and talk to them each for 30 minutes. other relatives--my grandparents, aunts, and uncles--call me periodically. i talk to high school friends via facebook. i have lots of photos from home on my walls. my parents send me a care package with cookies from home about once a month. so, as you can tell, i've tried to reduce homesickness, but it just isn't working. i'm getting so depressed that i think it might be in my best interest to transfer.</p>

2

<p>I'm lucky I chose a college only 40 minutes from home, thats the main reason why I chose it, even if it isn't the greatest university in the world, my family is that important to me, I am a severe mamas boy.</p>

<p>One thing you should do ASAP is go talk to a counselor for sure.</p>

3

<p>Find some family on the east coast to "adopt" you. When I went away to school back in the stone ages, I got really homesick for California, but not really for home, so I sort of know what you are going through.</p>

<p>You really will survive the spring semester away from home and will laugh about your homesickness when you are old like me.</p>

4

<p>This might seem contrary to common sense, but maybe you should think LESS about home and family. Talking to your parents for one hour per day and surrounding yourself with constant memories of home might be adding to your homesickness and preventing you from immersing yourself in your social scene at school.</p>

5

<p>my school is only an hour and half away from home, I go home every other weekend (sometimes every weekend) and I still dread going back to school. Sometimes I will drive back to school Monday morning and will be desperate to go home by that night. My point being, unless you go to a school right next to your home and you actually live at home, I'm not sure that it'll make things any easier. My suggestion is to talk to your parents about it and maybe find a way for them to come up sometime within that month and a half to visit you for a few days, or fly you home, even if it's just for the weekend. If you can find ways to play a trip or two home, or bring home to you, it should help and if you feel homesick, you can just remind youself of a planned trip home.</p>

6

<p>My thoughts differ. You need to "cut the cord" and interact less with family, not more. Don't go home every week or every other week. Don't have your family come visit you at school. Defiinitely stop calling your parents every night.</p>

<p>Find things to do on weekends with college friends.</p>

7

<p>Yeah I've got to agree. It's not a bad thing to keep in touch with the family. I'll call my parents on a very regular basis if I'm not doing anything. Likewise however they understand if I don't call, it's because I've got things going on. Talking to them for an hour every night on the phone though does seem like a lot. It might seem hard, but try to seperate yourself a little bit from them.</p>

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<p>I was actually just going to suggest that, lkf.</p>

<p>I'm far enough from home as well that I cannot visit outside of week-long vacations. To make matters slightly worse, I'm an only child so I've always had an extremely strong parental presence in my life (I'm also very close to both my parents). However, I think I find myself in the exact opposite situation as you... I love school and I can't wait to go back :)</p>

<p>Try to think of college as a beginning rather than an end. Build a life for yourself at college - make friends, get active, pick classes that you really enjoy - all the obvious stuff. Finding kids to relate to at school is probably the most important aspect of assimilation. It shouldn't be too difficult to do that with thousands of interesting, bright students around you (remember, you chose them). Embracing change isn't something that one can really talk oneself into but really, hanging onto an old life by the threads is going to do more harm than good. My dorm room looks NOTHING like my room at home and that's definitely a good thing - I still have a couple of pictures up of friends and family but they in no way dominate my space - the walls are full of things that I've done SINCE high school, which could serve as a nice reminder that life goes on. </p>

<p>The rest of my advice would be along the same lines. It may sound cold and heartless, but really, it's best to leave high school for the memory books and step into your college self. If high school was a good time for you (as it was for me), meet up with old friends over break, and there's plenty of time for that- catching up and sleepovers and late night drives to nowhere and all that good ol' time kind of stuff. But outside of that, I'd actually recommend not speaking so regularly with high school friends, just to break from that general mentality. I'm sure they have or will move on with their lives as well. I'm distracted watching conan o'brien. hope this is coherent. good luck. PM for anything else :)</p>

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<p>Wow, that was unnecessary!</p>

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<p>you are such a tool - no joke, live life you're in college...away from parents have fun...you're lucky only seeing them once a month</p>

11

<ol>
<li><p>Have your parents send you things that remind you of home ie food that you cant get in your college town - thats the way I keep from missing NYC too much.</p></li>
<li><p>Go home with a friend who lives nearby during breaks or weekends and explore their city, it might get your mind off of things.</p></li>
</ol>

12

<p>You'll eventually find yourself losing your high school friends for most part because people develop different interests as time goes on. </p>

<p>My main suggestion for you is to get yourself INVOLVED. Get busy so that by the time you call your family, you're just too tired to talk with them. I reserve Sunday nights for talking to my parents and that's it. I do keep in touch via e-mail everyday out of obligation... and mainly to stay on top of family stuff. I don't even really bother about going home.</p>

<p>What one of the posters said- you may be just homesick for California, not necessarily your home. That's one of the reasons why I transfered from MA to NY because I missed being in NY state, not being in the same house as my family.</p>

<p>Pebbles has good advice there- though color schemes between my two rooms are same, but they're completely different. Can't decide which one I like better... I think my college room :) more like me!</p>

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<p>Wow, I can't believe this tread. All of my friends can't wait until school starts, myself included.</p>

14

<p>It's in your best interest to start to grow up and be on your own. Call home once a week. Get some friends. Go party and get a little loose.</p>

15

<p>I really do wish I were like you guys who are having the time of their lives in college and can't wait to go back. I'm totally miserable going there, its like a prison to me.</p>

<p>I'm exactly in RKATC's position, I absolutely dread going back to my university, even though its 40 minutes away. I haven't made any friends or connections to the university at all, I know thats exactly what I need to do, but its so hard for me. I've always been a real mamas boy and been so close to my parents and little brother. Going to college has turned my entire world upside down, its an extremely rude awakening for me.</p>

16

<p>"Going to college has turned my entire world upside down, its an extremely rude awakening for me."</p>

<p>Good! Excellent!</p>

<p>That's what it's meant to do! Other than the education, college is supposed to give you a reality check!</p>

<p>My guess is that your family loved you tons, supported you constantly, and encouraged you whenever you got discouraged. Now you're at college, make mistakes constantly (completely normal), have many problems (completely normal), but you no longer have that immediate fallback support from your family. That's what you miss so much.</p>

<p>I applaud your family for being such a positive influence on your life, but unfortunately, you never learned how to pick yourself up when you were down (your family always did that for you)! You need to learn how to take action on your own and deal with your problems. You're parents are not always going to be there for you in life (you understand that right now, obviously!)</p>

<p>Hate to sound rude (please don't get defensive!), but everyone needs to cut ties physically from their family at some point in their life. Of course, you will always love them emotionally and supportively but you need to learn how to live on your own and stop relying on your parents to shield you from every single bump in the road.</p>

<p>The easiest time to learn this is in college!</p>

17

<p>BTW, i suggest you try this:</p>

<p>Tell your parents before you go back to college, that you will not be calling them for ONE WEEK. You MUST notify them of this plan.
NEVER call your parents during this week, barring any emergency.
If your parents call, answer the phone. Barring any emergency, keep the conversation as short as humanly possible (say you're busy and can't talk right now).
ONE WEEK, completely and utterly on your own.</p>

<p>This is an entirely necessary step for you to learn to be on your own and cope with it. You need to address this homesickness problem right at the heart of it.</p>

<p>You'll hate it so much that you'll do anything to change your situation (other than calling your parents of course).</p>

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<p>The first time I went away from home for an extended period of time, I found that talking to my parents made me MORE homesick. I'm really close to my family, especially my Mom, and hearing her voice on the phone made me want to cry. So I called just once or twice a week - I actually would have preferred not calling at all, but that would have hurt my parents' feelings. </p>

<p>I found that it was much better to really get involved in the activity I was there for (volunteering at a soup kitchen), and to try to make friends with the other kids and just have fun with them. The busier I was, the less I thought about my family, and the less homesick I was.</p>

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<p>It's not that severely homesick kids need to ignore family completely, they just need to appropriately distance themselves, whatever that means for each individual student. They also need to visit the college wellness/medical/psychological counseling...maybe start a homesickness anonymous/awareness club or group...seriously! </p>

<p>What has been shared in this thread requires professional assistance and support beyond the expertise of CCers. Seeking professional assistance is not a bad thing, it's a sign of maturity and is part of any healing process.</p>

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<p>the text is from the following site...
<a href="http://www.njnextstop.org/Lifeline.asp?id=23%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.njnextstop.org/Lifeline.asp?id=23&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>You've been dreaming for months, maybe years, of the day you could make your own rules. Pizza every night for dinner, why not? Stay out until 3 a.m. Monday through Friday and until 4 a.m. on the weekends? Go ahead, nobody's there to tell you no. But once the novelty of independence begins to wear off after a couple of weeks on campus, many freshmen are left with a nagging reality, an empty churning in the pit of their stomachs that can't even be satisfied by eating pizza for breakfast, lunch and dinner. </p>

<p>Most likely, says Jenna Davino, a 2001 graduate of Westfield High School, those feelings are homesickness. Jenna finished her freshman year at the University of Maryland at College Park in May 2002. "For the first few weeks, it was a lot of fun, and I was busy meeting other students," she says. "I wasn't that homesick, since I was always with people. After my first test I got sick; I then really missed my family." That was when Jenna wanted the comfort of her bedroom and some reassuring words from Mom. </p>

<p>Jenna tackled her adjustment blues head-on, joining social clubs, student government and sports organizations. "It gave me the chance to meet people inside and outside of my dorm," she explains. </p>

<p>While safety, and security, comes in numbers, not all college newbies are social dynamos. Most colleges and universities recognize that many kids need help adjusting to their new-found freedom and the temporary loss of a family and friend support system that took years to construct. Here are a few ways New Jersey-based schools help students survive their first semester. </p>

<p>Students accepted to Montclair State University in Montclair get the chance to enroll in a special program for freshman called S.T.A.R.S. (Students Transitioning to Academic and Residential Success). From academic support, computer labs, group retreats, discussion groups and other campus-sponsored events, the effort sets out to make the freshmen feel at home on campus. All S.T.A.R.S. participants live together in Bohn Hall. Cynthia Walston, coordinator of community development in the school's Office of Residence Life, notes, "Stats show that if freshmen make a connection [to college] in the first few weeks on campus, their school career will be more successful." </p>

<p>The Newark campus of Rutgers University runs the freshman OWLS program. OWLS stands for "Orientation Workshop Leader," and pairs up freshmen for the year with an upperclassman mentor. They meet for a day on campus in August, even before the school year starts. Clifford Greene, director of psychological services at Rutgers University-Newark, also notes that students experiencing severe homesickness can access counseling services at Rutgers, or many other universities, to discuss their feelings. </p>

<p>Richard Stockton College in Pomona believes that when it comes to adjusting, knowledge is power. Freshman orientation teaches new students and their parents about school activities and services. Eileen Conran, dean of students, says, "The college is keenly aware that the transition from high school to college has anxiety attached with it. So we meet with parents during orientation, and we have many opportunities to link the student to friends on campus." </p>

<p>All freshmen at Kean University in Union take a mandatory one-credit graded course called "First Year Seminar," which teaches ways to improve time management, study skills and human relations. In the September 10, 2001 issue of Time magazine, Kean University was selected as one of its "Colleges of the Year," largely as a result of this class helping freshmen adapt to college life. Upper-class students, known as peer liaisons, assist the professors with these classes, and then do direct mentoring with the freshmen. </p>

<p>Making the leap from high school to college is one of those all-important coming-of-age experiences. Truth be told, connections are never completely severed. The trip to maturity is paved with hefty phone bills, often to Mom. </p>

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