You may have spent a considerable amount of time preparing for college and enjoying your first few months abroad, that you may not have considered how much you might miss home especially during the holiday season. While homesickness is very common, especially for first year college students, it can be hard to overcome when your family is located overseas. In order to fend off holiday break homesickness, it’s important to gain an understanding on where it’s coming from and what you can realistically do about it in order to handle the holiday blues a bit easier.
Understand Your Feelings
Missing home can be a sign that you have happy and healthy relationship with the people back home. After all, we tend to miss the good and not bad parts of our life. Many students both local or foreign, experience homesickness with USA News attributing the feeling to the desire of home cooked meals, a quiet place to sleep, privacy and fewer responsibilities. Being a first year college student studying abroad includes a variety of major changes in your life ranging from a new lifestyle to new responsibilities from managing your finances to learning a new academic system and culture. If you’re unable to fly home for the holidays or have family visit you over winter break, there are a few ways you can make the most out of spending the holidays overseas and limit the amount of homesickness that you feel.
Turn Your College Life Into A Home Away From Home
There’s nothing more important than living in the moment. If you can’t be home for the holidays, it’s ok to feel sad about it for a little bit, but focusing your time and energy on an aspect that can’t be changed doesn’t do anything beneficial. Rather than over thinking on what you’re missing out on, concentrate on what you do get to enjoy. Refocusing your energy into turning your college life into a home away from home for the holidays can keep you merry and thankful over the holiday season. Remembering that college is a small yet influential part of your life is a great way to keep yourself motivated to enjoy the experience.
Challenging yourself to be around other people can be a great first step. If you tend to study in your room, consider going to a local coffee shop if you have your own laptop, or the on campus computer lab if not. Being around people can create a feeling of belongingness that can cheer up your mood if you allow it. Researchers sharing their study with PBS found that people are happier when they are with others versus when they are alone, and that the boost is the same for introverts and extroverts, making people happier in groups. Therefore, “being around people makes us happier, and when we are happier we are more fun to be around, creating an upward spiral of happiness!”
Connect With Others
Many colleges provide host programs for foreign students to get a taste of American culture during the holidays. Since many students come to America for an “American college experience” make the most out of your time abroad by enjoying new culture traditions this season. Princeton for example, runs the Thanksgiving Host Family Program where 50 families take in Princeton international students and academic fellows in an effort to offer cultural exchange amongst the communities. Host families invite students to their homes once a month to have dinner and celebrate birthdays and other holiday celebrations beyond Thanksgiving to help students feel at home away from home. “We just don’t want anyone to get a foreign education without having been in an American home and celebrated an American holiday,” said Reverend Scott Luley who has welcomed international students into his home for the past 10 years. A quick visit to the college career center or a meeting with your academic advisors can help you find what options there are to donate your time to charity work over the holidays, such as working at a soup kitchen helping provide meals to the homeless or less fortunate, or getting matched up with a host family for winter celebrations. Each school has their own offerings, so plan ahead and see what you can get involved with this holiday season!
Having the opportunity to learn overseas and be a foreign student within the US college system is a wonderful experience, one that is up to you to make the most of! If you’re unable to spend the holidays at home, limit your homesickness by getting involved with different opportunities your college provides and spending time around others. You’ll be surprised how much happier you can be, and how openminded you can become towards new experiences if you just let yourself. Make the most of enjoying winter in America this year, by having a truly American holiday experience in your home away from home.
Sources:
http://www.pbs.org/thisemotionallife/topic/connecting/connection-happiness
