What is Homesickness and How to Deal with it?

Homesickness is the distress and emotions of loneliness, fear, and unhappiness caused by separation from home. Homesickness includes the feeling of unhappiness triggered by the pain of parting from family and close friends. If students are foreign nationals, they may find it difficult to adjust to the new climate, transportation, safety issues, and the unfamiliar types of food. This also leads to becoming homesick.

Remember, such feelings of not being content with where you are and what you are doing at university, can drag you away from concentrating on your goal and studies.

Here are few factors that contribute to being homesick and can affect students' life, performance in studies

• Staying away from home
• A sense of being over-relaxed after working rigorously on every step of the process between university selection and final arrival at the university
• Whether the student him/herself made the decision of studying in the university far away from home
• Disappointment and unhappiness caused due to unfulfilled expectations of university life
• Being overloaded by work and lack of control over it
• Absence of free time for leisure and healthy activities
• Strong contrast in lifestyle at home and at university

Enjoying a different phase of life, adjusting to a new routine, getting familiar with a new place that you have chosen to further your studies and shape up your career and your life ahead certainly helps overcoming the feeling of being homesick. It also boosts up the confidence of being able to handle your own life, which is as much important as studies.

Here are few tips that can help overcoming the feeling of being homesick:

• Keep in touch with the people at home, close friends by phone and email
• Allow yourself enough time to settle in the new place
• Learn your way around and become involved in university life
• Concentrate on the routine ahead. Avoid looking back; it always paints a picture of grass being greener on the other side
• Remember, it's OK to feel sad and homesick but it is better to know and welcome your new lifestyle away from home
• Be active in life and know the culture of the place where you are studying
• Send home some photos. It will help your family and friends know more about your new life
• Try to make your room or the place you are staying, feel more like home. So put things in your room that help make it homely, familiar and as cozy as your room back home
• If you are not sure about the course you are doing, reach out for help, and talk to course advisors or the careers' advisors for options