College Woes

[Tinker Gnome]

Okay, I hope I dont go off on a tangent too much here, but I need soem advice. And seeing as how a lot of people here have went through, or are going through college I figured this would be a good place to vent a bit.

I am going to be attending a university this fall. I have to move in August 20th. I will have a suite style room, which means I will have my own room and share a bathroom with someone else. I will nto be alcking for conveniences as I have both a Laptop and an 19" HD TV that I will be taking with me.

So, it seems I have everything sorted out for me, and perhaps have it damn good, this I will not deny.

My main problem is homesickness, I admit I am a mama's boy to the extreme, and i think I always will be. I will even miss my little doggy that is so cute and lovable. And my dad, who despite being a bit of a grump is a good person too. And I can not forget my gaming group, who I have had many fun times with.

Any of you ever have to deal with homesickness in any way? Know good ways to cope with it? Cause I tend to get sad real quick if I have not talked to my mom in person in about a day. I know some of you may say "make friends" and I am socially adept, I just find that it takes a while for me to make friends and other people tend to bore me sometimes.

So, any advice?

 

[Mycanid]

Hey there Galeros.

Well ... one thing might be to scope out the place for another gaming group. As for gaming friends, do they game online? That's a way you can all stay in touch. Pbem, PbP, video game online stuff, PbC are all methods that are usuable. I have been writing to my old gaming buddies for the past 19 years now via IM and letters and even phone calls every now and again. They're great people. What can I say?

Another ... does your mom or dad (I won't ask about the dog...) IM at all? She an email person? (Both uses for the laptops.) Another possibility is streaming video! Usually dorm rooms in colleges have hardwired connections for the students (and/or wi-fi) for the students that can take such data transfer. Also - got a cell phone?

By the way. There's nothing wrong with being homesick. If you love your folks you love your folks. Period. I have been staying in touch with my folks ever since moving out at age 18.

You will make friends I am willing to bet. I guess the main advice I could give to you would be to keep up all your old contacts and relationships, but branch out and make new ones too. Homesickness is made all the more keen when we lose perspective on things by being drawn into the present tense too intensely. Just be patient. Things will develop slow but sure. Just don't push things or force things.

But be aware, I am a bit of a loner sort. I like being with my friends and such, but I like being by myself even more ... so perhaps in this sense I am not a real reliable source of info in this regard. Also, though, I am a letter writer. I have boxes and boxes and boxes of letters from people who have written to me for the past two decades.

You going to be somewhere where you can walk outside at night and lay on your back and look at the stars and not get eaten by mosquitoes, btw?

 

[MonkeyDragon]

AIM is your friend. So are phonecards. Call your mom every day to talk about stuff that's going on.

The cafeteria is a good place to meet people, especially other freshmen who are in the same state you are.

Something to remember is that part of the homesickness you're feeling isn't just because you miss certain people. You're in a new and different place. College is so different than home for most people, and it's a real kick in the face at first. As you get more used to and more comfortable with campus and the new routines you'll make for yourself, you'll worry less about home.

Finally, while going home for labor day weekend can be a good way to ease yourself into being away (and you get to pack up the rest of the stuff you forgot, and bring home all the stuff you thought you needed and didn't), after that, try not to come home for awhile. Spend your weekends at school finding fun stuff to do. It's tempting to go home every weekend and see the people that you miss, but you won't get over the homesickness if you do.

 

[Rodrigo Istalindir]

I can remember back that far

Let me dissent a little. Sooner or later, you're going to have be a little more independent. Nows a good time to start. It will be rough at first, and you're going to be tempted to call home every night, sit around the dorm and mope, etc.

Start right now steeling yourself not to do that. Don't cut yourself off completely, but start with calling home every other day. Get that down to 1/week if you can. If you find yourself not making (or breaking) plans to do something so you can go back to the dorm and call home, that's probably not good. Also, keep the trips home to a minimum. Fall semester, maybe one trip in early October after you've settled in, then its just a few weeks to Thanksgiving, then a short hop to Christmas.

With your own room it's going to be really easy to retreat, so you'll need to make an extra effort to get out. (In the olden days when it was 2 or 3 people to a single room, it was a lot harder to hide). Eat in the dining halls/cafeterias instead of cooking or ordering food and eating in your room.

Find on-campus gaming clubs, or other interest groups. Most decent sized universities have a student group for just about everything under the sun. Early on I got involved in the student judicial system and the group that organized guest lecturers. Neither sucked up an inordinate amount of time, and neither was something I thought I'd be interested in and just sort of fell into, but ended up being something I did till I graduated.

Talk with your parents about this. Some parents have as hard a time as the students, and if they are pressuring you to call every night or come home every weekend, it's going to be rough on you. Hopefully they went to college too, so they'll understand how easy it is to get totally swamped. Email is a great alternative. IM less so, since that creates the expectation of an instantaneous response.

Finally, if you are really worried about this, identify student mental health resources ahead of time. Almost everyone gets homesick, and the college will have people on staff who are experienced in dealing with this. There's nothing wrong with talking to someone, and its all confidential so you don't have to worry about roommates teasing you or whatever. It can be really hard to tell the difference between a bad bout of chronic homesickness and real depression.

Good luck -- I bet by the end of Christmas break, you'll be anxious to get back to your new friends and activities at school.

/old man voice

Man, kids today. Freshman semester, they were overbooked and I got stuck for a month in a room with 3 other guys. There were 56 students on the floor, and there were two communal bathrooms iwth communal showers. No maid service, no cable TV in our rooms till junior year. No email, no IM. Long-distance phone calls cost an arm and a leg. If we wanted to watch TV, we had a common room that the whole floor shared. Same with the kitchen. Enrollment was 36,000 and they were trying to cut that to 33,000, so there was very little effort on the part of the U to cut anybody any slack. It was an absolute blast.

 

[genshou]

There aren't enough mama's boys in the world. Good for you!

Setting out will be difficult at first, but just remember that your family is proud of you. And talk to them on the phone a lot. That helps.

And if you need an online gaming group, mine meets Sunday nights to play Urban Arcana...

 

[ssampier]

You will feel homesickness, but don't worry, college can be a lot of fun. Soon that homesickness will be filled with late night studying, keggers, and hitting on the opposite sex.

As for advice on dealing with it, I would surround yourself with your stuff: gaming books, pictures, anything, to remind you of home. Don't overdue it, you don't want your roomate thinking you're a wuss.

Lastly, don't forget most freshmen tend to make lots of frequent trips home. At least they did in my dorm. I was one of the few who stayed on campus on weekends (of course I was an upper class-men). My point is, don't worry too much if you need to make a trip back. You may realize you don't miss home as much as you thought.

 

[genshou]

Emphasis mine.

Soon that homesickness will be filled with late night studying, keggers, and hitting on the opposite sex.

There's your easiest solution to the problem of homesickness.

 

[LightPhoenix]

Man, kids today. Freshman semester, they were overbooked and I got stuck for a month in a room with 3 other guys. There were 56 students on the floor, and there were two communal bathrooms iwth communal showers. No maid service, no cable TV in our rooms till junior year. No email, no IM. Long-distance phone calls cost an arm and a leg. If we wanted to watch TV, we had a common room that the whole floor shared. Same with the kitchen. Enrollment was 36,000 and they were trying to cut that to 33,000, so there was very little effort on the part of the U to cut anybody any slack. It was an absolute blast.

My senior year, they had so many students living on campus they had to rent out a wing of the hotel across the street, and still had to house about sixty kids in a rec room.

Galeros, I think that's something everyone goes through when they move. The important thing to remember is that college is a lot more fun than high school, and that it's a really social environment (and I don't mean keggers). Unless you deliberately try to be a loner, chances are you're going to have a good amount of friends. That will help to alleviate a lot of the homesickness.

 

[genshou]

LightPhoenix is right. Hell, look at me! I went to college for one semester and tried to be a loner, and I made a lot of new friends! I can't wait until I can afford to go again.

 

[WmRAllen67]

If your college is anything like my undergrad, Freshman Orientation will keep you very busy for a few days, and throw you together with a bunch of folks who are going through the exact same thing you are... so in some respects there's a social group provided for you right off the bat... and with folks from all over the country coming in to the typical freshman class, there's bound to be a few that you'll click with...

And if you want to call home, then call home-- you're going to college, not on a three-year trip to Mars. Find a happy medium between the "call every day" and "you never call, you never write" and you'll be fine... Heck, I'm almost forty and still ring my folks up about once a week or so, if only to get the family news and make sure everything's fine...

Once classwork hits in earnest, you may find that you don't call as often, and haven't even realized it-- because you may be doing too much to think about it...

I keep finding that I worry about things that really don't need to be worried about. Try not to build the homesickness you might possibly feel at some point in the future into something that sucks the life out of you today. Do take Roderigo's advice and identify the support networks the school provides, but only as a backup, not as your only plan for dealing with things...

BTW, congratulations! You should have tons 'o fun! I enjoyed it so much the first time that I'm finally going back myself, but for me the percieved "hard thing" is becoming a TA-- I'm just not a public speaker...