There’s No Place Like Home

College students may have feelings of homesickness since many of them are away from their families for the first time. Staff members at St. Lawrence University try and reduce feelings of homesickness for students, but the opinions among the student body are varied based on personal experiences. Fall athletes, for example, had to stay for most of, if not, the entire break.  

Member of the cross-country team Cole Harris ’26 was not able to spend the whole mid-semester break at home. “I think [my homesickness] was slightly effected by not being able to go home earlier,” he said. Harris stayed on campus for a few days during mid-semester break but was able to go home for the remainder of the week because of his training schedule 

Alisha Westfall ’26 knew that the transition to college would result in homesickness, so she was able to prepare herself mentally before coming to SLU. She has adjusted with different ways of communicating and staying in touch with people from home. “I’m in group chats with extended family, and I also call friends, which I think is important because a lot of people only focus on family, but it’s also good to call friends and see how they’re doing,” she said.  

Westfall also expressed that she had a few more days with her family during mid-semester break. “Ideally, I would have liked a little bit longer of a break, but I think even for a couple days it was good to just at least see my family, that way I could see home and feel normal,” she said.  

Emma Kahle ’26 went to a boarding school for high school. Because her high school experience was away from home, she has not felt homesick while at college. “[Boarding school] was almost identical to the dorm experience, and I’ve been very lucky to not be struggling with homesickness, but I’ve certainly seen countless friends struggling with it and I feel bad that I can’t relate to them,” said Kahle.  

To make college feel more like home, Kahle likes to call her parents and put-up pictures of her friends and family in her room. She also likes to send care-packages to her parents. Westfall said that her brother sends her pictures from home, and she gets to FaceTime her dog to stay connected with home. 

Communications Professor Dr. Andrew Donofrio believes that social media and other forms of communication can be useful to reduce homesickness. “Often times we’ll find, when people are transplanted internationally from their culture, that they’ll use social media as that connective tissue back to their family and that that can give them that sense of belonging that is somewhat disrupted when they find themselves in a new place,” he said. “It keeps those ties to friends and family and community as they begin to sort of develop these new informed, new relationships.” 

Kahle recalls that talking to loved ones can also increase feelings of homesickness because it reminds her that she is not physically with her family. This is not applicable to everyone because some may find it more comforting to talk to familiar faces. “It is really up to the perception of the individual, and it’s so much a part of what that person’s going though in a particular situation and also their mindset in thinking about the conversation,” Donofrio commented.