Zach Eucalitto – Special to The Southern News –
Home sickness is a big problem when you are a college student, especially when you are not from this state.
“I didn’t think I was going to make it. I thought that I would just transfer and go back home after the first semester,” said Libby Hess.
Hess, a junior who transferred here from Lincoln College in Lincoln, Ill., close to her hometown Clinton, Iowa.
“My mom kept telling me it would be better after I got to know people and make more friends,” she said. “My mom was right, things got much better when I got to know people and it made things easier.”
Sometimes students have pictures, objects or even food that helps them cope with being away from home for long periods of time.
But sometimes these pictures don’t help, they can only make it worse.
“I would look at pictures and feel comforted at first, then start feeling sad because I knew I wasn’t going to see my family for sometime,” said Hess.
Other people might have an easier time with the transition from being at home to going away to school.
Kristen Schmid, a senior from Long Island, N.Y., said, “I was more eager to get away from home but realized it wasn’t going to be as easy as I thought,” said Schmid.
“I was all ready to go, tired of being home all the time, I wanted to get out and meet new people.”
But meeting people isn’t easy when you aren’t from around the area and don’t have a friend there when you need one.
“It was really hard to meet people the first couple of weeks because I didn’t have anyone so I had to really put myself out there and talk to people; that’s really hard sometimes,” said Schmid.
Clubs and sports teams can be a big help with finding your place in school when you don’t start off with a base of friends.
“After three weeks of classes, swimming practice started for me and this gave me people to take too bad it also gave me a very good stress reliever,”said Schmid.
New students deal with a lot of stress their first few weeks (or months) from the new setting and the fact that they will actually have to do work now.
Some kids go out and drink to relieve that stress and others find better ways to do it.
“Swimming really let me take out my aggression, I would just swim faster when I was having a bad day,” said Schmid.
And then there are just other students who love the transition from home to school and do not miss home at all.
Junior Kyle Pietro is one of those people who dosen’t miss being home at all; even though he’s from Philadelphia, Penn.
“I never want to go back home there is nothing left for me anymore,” said Pietro. “I want to go out and see as much as I can; not just stay in the same place I’ve been in for so many years.”
However, this does not mean that every once and awhile Pietro doesn’t feel homesick and miss his family.
“I miss my family all the time, but I know that they will always be there when I want to go back home and see them,” said Pietro.
There are all types of ways people deal with homesickness, but some people will always like being away from home.
