Homesick at College

You’ve already unpacked your things in the dormitory and started with great enthusiasm for the educational process when you left for study abroad. A short goodbye to the parents and here is the long-awaited freedom and adventure ahead. On arrival, you start to meet new people, begin to study and then for some reason it becomes sad and hard on the soul, you are out of mood, and all you want is to get quickly under the blanket and plunge into memories of your home, parents, and friends from the native city. What is this and why is this happening to you?

This unbearable feeling and anguish continually frustrate you and do not give a full enjoyment of that long-awaited freedom that you so dreamed of. But do not worry, this feeling is a common phenomenon for almost all students abroad at first. Well, it’s time to give some tips on how to quickly cope with this trouble and feel the joy of a free life again.

The first thing you need to do is to accept the fact that you miss home, mom’s food and weekends spent with friends. We advise you to plan a day when you can call your family and share experiences with them from your new life and share memories of your hometown with them. Then try to realize, your longing is based on experience in a new place or on the desire to return home sooner. Think about it, because most of the time it’s just homesickness.

Fill Your Free Time With New Events

Try to communicate with new people more, because when you are near those who are most likely experience the same feelings of longing, it will be much easier for you. Try to find time to communicate with your mates and neighbors in the dorm. Either way, you still would have to spend with them more than one academic year. Look for exciting courses, visit some different student groups, go in for sports or go to the city holidays with new friends. In one way or another, communication with new acquaintances will gradually develop, and you will feel better.

Try to Use Your Time Fully and Profitably

If you make your schedule for a day, a week, a month, there’s nothing strange about this, because the point is not to clutter your mind with trivialities. Making a schedule, try to stick to it day by day. Wake up early, take a run, gather for classes, visit the library, go to the gym, meet with friends or go to the cinema. In time, you will see that in a new place your life has received a new impetus and you determine its course. Of course, longing for home will also start to retreat immediately.

Get Yourself Out of the Comfort Zone

Do not sit in the dormitory all the time, try something new: sport, dancing or learning new languages. The main thing is that your brain is focused on learning some new skills and then you will quickly forget about the homesickness. Motivating yourself with new goals and the feeling of pleasant excitement from achieving new goals will ideally help you to cope with everything immediately. Try to do it together with your new friends or acquaintances.

Never Stop Until You Get It

If some of your plans fail, do not show it, but instead behave as if everything OK. Sitting in the room every day flipping through Facebook and Instagram won’t change anything. Communicate more, both on the road from classes and in the corridor, smile more often, take on new exciting projects, and eventually, all these processes will become so familiar that you will not have to pretend. And one day, all the homesickness will disperse by itself and now even after the holidays spent in your own home you will be drawn to quickly return to the campus to your new friends and hobbies.