Your first year of college means settling into your new home, your new routine, new classes and a new city. While this is an exciting time in your life, we recognize that this is still a huge adjustment.
With such big changes, some of you might be beginning to feel a little homesick, and that’s completely normal. The feeling of “homesick” can be different for everyone. For some of you, it might be missing your parents/guardians or your siblings. But feeling homesick doesn’t have to mean missing a person or people but it can also mean missing your comfort zone. You were comfortable at home at your parents house, at your high school, in the town or city you moved from. Your routine has changed and feeling a little homesick is part of learning how to adjust to your new life. People get homesick for what they know. But we have a few ideas of how you can battle homesickness and help this adjustment period go a little smoother.
Make your new space feel like home
This will help the process of making you more comfortable and making your new home really feel like home. Whether you are living in residence or renting a room off campus, you need to make it yours. Add photos and personal touches from home. It will help you adjust and make it feel like home a lot quicker. Get some more ideas of how to give your space a more home-like feel from our blog, “Back to School: September Checklist”.
Get involved! Get to know your new city/town and school!
Go out and explore. Make sure you are giving yourself time to get involved in activities and have some fun outside of class and study time. Remember our motto “Learn, Work, Live”? Well this is the “Live” part (and in many cases it can even be the Learn – learn about your college and your new city outside of the classroom!) Maybe you want to join an on campus club or take part in an activity being hosted in your residence or on campus? What about going out and exploring your new cities landmarks, entertainment and local food?
Talk about it
It’s always better to talk about it then to just ignore the feeling and hope it goes away. While it will eventually, it will help a lot if you have someone to voice your feelings and concerns too. Talk to your roommates or your friends about how you are feeling because odds are, they are feeling the same way too! If you don’t feel comfortable doing that, Confederation College, Sault College, Northern College, Collège Boréal, Cambrian College and Canadore College all offer free counselling services to their students to help you with adjusting to your new life away at college.
