As much as you may want to get away from your family and your hometown, it’s likely that you’ll experience at least some level of homesickness while you’re away. You probably don’t think that now, but things may change after the first few months away. That’s totally fine—everyone feels at least a little homesick every once in a while. And when you do get homesick, there are things that you can do to help alleviate your feelings.

Probably the best thing to do to keep yourself from getting homesick in college is to keep in touch with your family and friends back home (in moderation, of course). Call your parents once a week, email or IM your friends every couple days, and keep up on what’s going on in your hometown. While this may not help immediately, you’ll feel much more reassured if you maintain a connection. Staying in touch is much easier than it used to be, as you’re not limited to the phone and email anymore. You can instant message, use social networking sites and public calendars, and any number of other electronic methods of communication. Take advantage of these different things and you won’t feel nearly as disconnected.

Another effective method of combating homesickness in college is one that you won’t even have to think about—staying busy. Your freshman year, especially the first few months, can become extremely filled with activity. You’ll have classes, orientations, homework, social events, and intramural sports. If you don’t allow yourself the time to think about being away from home, you’ll experience a great deal less homesickness. In fact, you might even find that you forget to think about it at all for a few days!

Making new friends is one of the best things that you can do for yourself, both from a homesickness perspective and in general. Because most colleges realize that it can be difficult to socially integrate yourself into a completely new environment, they provide many opportunities for getting to know others. You’ll have gatherings on your dorm floors, organized freshman activities, and a lot of ice breakers in your first few classes. While it can be tempting to skip out on these, take advantage of the opportunity—you might end up meeting some really cool people that wouldn’t have spoken to otherwise.

There are a lot of things that you can do to ward off homesickness in college. It can be easy, however, to fall into one of the worst things that you can do about homesickness: ignoring it. When you miss your family, friends, and hometown, don’t pretend like you’re not thinking about them at all. This will only make it worse; just address the fact with the suggestions above, and come up with your own ways to deal with it. You’ll be much better off for it. Talking to others about it can be very beneficial for both people, and you may find that a lot of the people you know are experiencing the same things, even if they don’t show it.

As always, if you have any questions, comments or funny stories you'd like me to share about college or the blog, email me at stu@stuvu.com