The Mystery of Homesickness
Last spring I graduated high school at long last. Summer was spent sleeping and getting excited and this fall I moved three hundred miles away from home to start my freshman year of college. Now it’s nearly Christmas and my first quarter is almost over. During the past quarter in college I was anxiously awaiting the feeling of homesickness every student seems to complain about after they start their freshman year. However, I soon found that not everyone actually feels this way when it comes to homesickness. In fact, most people I interacted with didn’t feel homesick at all, which was the opposite of what I had been told. I had been told how I would be so excited to come back home and not want to go back to college after breaks, and I found the exact opposite had happened to me.
Another surprise for me occurred in the form of my English 101 class. I had expected essays and reading, but was instead granted the freedom to research, write, and perform about a topic of my choice. What other thing should I research but the mysterious disease called homesickness?
During my initial research, I discovered while researching is just how homesickness feels. When people get homesick it can give them headaches, stomachaches, insomnia, and can even evolve into full-on depression if it gets bad enough. Because of these physical symptoms, homesick students can see declines in their social life. They can also see a drop in their grades if it affects them really badly. Homesickness is not just wanting to go home, as I originally thought. It really is a sickness that needs treatment.
I also found that about 70% of college freshman report feeling homesick, which is a lot, but the number was not as high as I expected. In my friend group of fellow freshman, none of them talked about feeling homesick, which was kind of weird in comparison to the actual study on homesickness I had read about online. I read a whole bunch of stuff on the internet (as teenagers do) and none of the studies or articles I found seemed to match what I had experienced over the past nine weeks.
Because of this I decided to pose what I named the Viking theory, after our schools mascot. My school goes through great measures to keep students happy and healthy, which is why I believe the overall feeling of homesickness is not as present here as it is at other schools. Our RA’s actually talk to us, the professors really do care, and the health center is always ready to help.
However, from what I understand, not every school is like this. If you are a student feeling homesick, you can reach out and help yourself to feel better. Visit the student health center, talk to your friends, or call your family. There is always going to be someone who cares, and you don’t have to struggle through the school year all by yourself.
