Anonymous asked: I've realized that I leave for college in 11 days and have never been away from my family for more than a week (and that week was when I stayed with other family for a family reunion... anyways) and I am kind of freaking out about it. How do I deal?
Oh, baby, listen, college is scary as fuck from the outside, it’s the nature of the beast. I promise, I really do, after that first terrifying week or so of adjustment, it gets easier, you learn the rhythm, slip into it. College is fun, once you get a finger on the pulse of it, whether you’re someone who likes to party or someone who thinks a movie marathon is where it’s at. But the adjustment is inevitably a little rough, so I’d say the first step of dealing it to remind yourself that you’re going to be one freshman in a whole cadre, and every last one of you is going to be just as stressed. If someone seems calm about it, it’s not that they’re more of a grown-up or less homesick, it just means they’re a better liar. Take a deep breath, let yourself freak out, and remember that you’re going to be okay.
Some other tips for dealing:
- Try to make at least one friend on the first day, even if making yourself walk up and talk to them is absolutely terrifying. I’m not still friends with the people from that first day, we grew apart, but having someone to sit with at meals that first week, someone to share sarcastic looks with during the hideously awkward ice-breakers, someone to actually look for in a crowded room rather than standing around like a stump? It makes life a hell of a lot easier.
- Skype exists! Skype is great! If you’re homesick and you want to Skype your parents every single day, do it! Shit, I’m going to be a senior next year, I haven’t been home for more than three weeks since last winter, I am planning for after college and grad school, and I still video-call my parents at least twice a week when I can. If anyone tries to give you shit, literally just stare at them like they’re speaking another language. It shuts people up damn quick, and you don’t even have to do anything.
- Related to the above: your relationship with your family is going to change. You’re going to be on your own, living your own life for the first time, and it’s inevitably going to have some effects on your relationship with your family, especially your parents. Don’t be afraid of it, and be willing to set your own boundaries if you feel like you need to.
- Bring your favorite books and movies, and for fuck’s sake bring a stuffed animal or a favorite poster or something to give your room some life. Dorm rooms look like prison cells, it’s depressing as fuck, cover that white cinderblock shit up.
- Bring some comfort food with you to your dorm room, even if it’s just a bag of Hershey’s Kisses or something like that. In fact, bring some comfort food for yourself and then bring something sugar-loaded to share with the riff-raff. The affection of college students is easily bought with junk food, it’s an instant friend-maker, and having something familiar and comforting really will help.
- Don’t expect your roommate to be your best friend. I mean, they might be, or you might go through a LOT of roommates, and expecting them to be your best friend right off the bat will just set you up for disappointment. My first roommate and I rarely spoke more than pleasantries, my second arrangement was a quad, my third arrangement was a triple, my fourth arrangement was the same triple with a roommate swapped out, and now I have my roommate who I adore living with and who is my entire social circle. There might be a lot of shuffling around and that’s fine. It’s normal.
- This is more general, but DO NOT live in a quad. A triple was pretty strained. The quad was intolerable.
- Make friends outside your room. I can’t emphasize this enough. It’s hard to feel homesick and out of place when you have other people around, even if you aren’t going to be bestest friends forever. Tips for making friends include:
- Crack a joke. Laughter causes a flood of dopamine and seratonin, the feel-good chemicals in your brain, and that person will associate the pleasant sensation with you.
- Feed them junk food. I am so fucking serious, I bought the friendship of a PA (my school’s floor-by-floor equivalent of an RA) with a chocolate chip cookie.
- Join a club. Ready-made group of people who share at least one interest of yours. Statistics are in your favor that at least one of them will be tolerable.
- Nothing bonds a group together like shared suffering, so if you have a particularly awful teacher, sit down with your class at lunch and bitch with them. Same applies to a particularly difficult class or a catastrophe.
- On that first day (and this is going to sound bad) look for the easiest target. You see a kid sitting alone at a table? Take two deep breaths, brace yourself, and just fucking sit down with them. Have a remark prepared, if it helps, something like “Can you believe the icebreaker they made us do” or “Holy shit this is a lot of people” or “Hey I like your shirt.”
- Basically, you’re going from an environment where you have people to one where you don’t. So GET PEOPLE. It’ll help.
- This is a chance to reinvent yourself. Take it. Be honest with what you like and dislike, because doing your first impression as yourself will net you better friends than otherwise. Don’t feel obliged to have the TV college life with partying and drinking and drugs if you don’t want it, you aren’t doing college wrong if your version of Friday night is movies ‘til morning rather than dancing ‘til dawn. Conversely, college really is a chance to kind of explore your life a little. Kiss people, if you’re into that. Learn a new language. Try something you’ve never tried before, even if it’s just joining a new club (if you’re curious for recommendations, I suggest D&D because I’m a fucking nerd).
Above all else, let yourself freak out. Cry all over someone before you leave for school. Tell people how much you’ll miss them. Admit to the people you meet at college that you’re freaking out. Bottling up the stress will just make it really hard to adjust. So panic, and then breathe, and remind yourself that you’re going to be all right.
And here’s my obligatory medical addendum: bring a first aid kit and maybe google how to treat a cut or a scrape or something. It’ll make you popular to know how to do basic adult things like that. Also, do what you want, it’s your life, but I’d advise not going to class hungover (meaning drink on weekends), and remember that if you or your friends do anything especially dumb, the EMT’s are not there to narc on you, please come clean to them. Don’t mix uppers and downers, and it IS possible to OD on caffeine.
Go forth, baby, because you’re going to be fine.
