So, you’ve moved away from home, ready to enter the big, exciting world that is university. Although you’re probably extremely excited to be here, I imagine you’re also quite apprehensive about all the new people you’re meeting and all the new environments you’ve got to get used to.
A lot of the time, this can lead to feeling homesick. Homesickness is completely normal. In fact, 70% of students feel homesick in their first year of university.
This article is designed to give you some coping mechanisms to deal with homesickness while you settle into your new life at university.
Keep yourself occupied
This is a given. The more you immerse yourself in your new surroundings and interact with new people, the more familiar they will become, which in turn, will ease the homesickness.
Try taking up every opportunity given to you to socialise, even if at the time you don’t really feel up to it.
Go into Worcester city centre with you flatmates, go clubbing with your new course mates. Soon you will find yourself comfortable enough around these people to call them your friends.
In my first year, I was so homesickness, I refused to go out for Freshers. In hindsight, I only made the situation worse for myself, as I never had the opportunity to ignore my feelings and enjoy my first week.
Talk to someone
In my first month as a Fresher, I remember thinking ‘why am I the only one who seems to feel homesick?’. Because of this, I never spoke to any of my flatmates about my feelings.
As the year went by and I got closer to them, it turned out a lot of them were also homesick, but like me, were trying to hide it. If I had opened up about the way I was feeling at the time, the chances are they would have as well.
This would have given us all a greater support network to help us deal with our homesickness, which would have more than likely helped us get over the feeling sooner.
It is so important that you talk to your flatmates and course friends about how you feel. Not only will it make you feel better, but it’ll also help you form a closer friendship with them.
Phone home, or don’t!
Phoning home when you’re feeling down does not mean you’ve failed to settle in! Knowing your family and friends from home are only a phone call away can really help calm any nerves you have about being away from them. So phone home as much as you like if it’s going to help you relax.
Equally, if you think phoning home is going to make you feel worse, don’t do it! Your family will completely understand that you need time to settle in before getting in contact with them.
Homesickness is a feeling experienced by most when starting university, and isn’t something you should feel ashamed about.
It will get a lot easier and you will find as the weeks go by, you start to miss home less and less, and soon will start to see Worcester as your new home.
So just hang in there, follow this advice and you’ll get through it in your own time!
Worcester Student Life 