Katherine Daniel, Editor in Chief~
College is often to be said as one of the best times in a person’s life. While it may be true for some people, many freshmen are also away from their family, friends, pets, and their comfortable bed for the first time in their life. Yeah, when you were home you would go hang out with your friends and have sleepovers, but that is different once you are in college. Whether you are an hour away from home or ten hours, you end up having a little bit of homesickness. Here are six things you should do if you are feeling homesick.
Number one: call your family. Whether you call your family once a week or every single day, it is good for you because they miss you as much as you miss them. If you miss your dog or cat, get your mom or dad to facetime you and have the dog or cat in it. This helps with the homesickness. If you are like me, I call my mom every day because she is my best friend. I am not sure what I would do without her because she listens to me when I gossip, complain, cry, laugh, or go on and on about something that she might not want to hear about. For me, I only live an hour and a half away from home. So, my freshman year I liked to go home a lot on the weekends.
Number two: watch a movie or a show that you absolutely love. For me, my roommate and I use to watch HGTV together because we liked to watch Property Brothers. I love Say Yes to The Dress on TLC, so I used to watch that in my dorm room every time it came on. Of course, I still watch it in my apartment. We loved to watch Netflix as well. Her and I both liked Thirteen Reasons Why on Netflix. Oh my gosh, have you all seen the new Netflix original movie called To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before? It is great and I highly recommend the movie. Whatever movies or shows you like or anything you watched with your family you liked, watch them when you have time.
Number three: go to a bakery or get ice-cream around the Lynchburg area. The bakery I recommend is the Chestnut Hill Bakery. Their cupcakes are so light and fluffy and they are to die for. They also have other goodies besides cupcakes so do not worry. I also recommend Maylynn’s Creamery in Downtown Lynchburg. They have very good rolled ice-cream and my favorite is the Death by Chocolate. They also have milkshakes and regular ice-cream too.
Number four: talk to your RA. They have been through all of this before and are happy to talk with you about anything. I know my RA would check on us during the semester and we could talk to her about pretty much anything. It was great to have that person who is open minded and just to vent to when needed.
Number five: join a club or organization. Joining a club or organization can help you with homesickness because these clubs and organizations might offer some of the things that you use to do in high school. For me, I play Club Softball and I have made some amazing friends. Back at home, I was a three-sport athlete and I also played travel softball, so I was always busy with sports. I was a part of many different organizations in high school. Being a part of these organizations help you get involved in the campus community and keep you from getting homesick.
Number six: talk to people. Talking to people and making new friends is always helpful when you are homesick. Whether it is making new friends in your dorm or people in class, meeting new people and having new friends is always nice. It is nice to have someone who will listen to you talk about your day and then they can do the same to you. It also nice to make new friends because then you can go out on the weekends and find new things to do in Lynchburg.