If you've moved away from home to start university or college, it's quite normal to feel homesick in the first few weeks. While it is important to keep in touch with family and friends at home, getting involved in new activities and making new friends is often the best way to make yourself feel better.
You will need to make an effort to make friends. Start by focusing on making one or two friends, rather than expecting to make loads of friends overnight. The best way to make friends is to join in with things, for instance the Freshers' Week activities, and to be yourself around people – you don't want to make friends with people who you feel you have to put on an act with the whole time. If you're stuck for things to talk to people about, ask questions as people love to talk about themselves! Remember that many students form close friendships with other people on their course, or who belong to the same club or society as they do, rather than with the people they live with. So, don't worry if you feel you don't have much in common with the people you are living with and spend Freshers' Week with.
Social networking sites, such as Unibuddies, are a great way to meet people who are starting at the same university or college as you, before you go. Unibuddies connects people before they start their course and talking to other people in the same boat as you could help you feel a lot more confident when you do start university/college.
If, several weeks into the term, you are still struggling to settle in, there are people at your university or college who you can talk to about this. In order to get the appropriate support, it will help if you can identify what in particular is the problem – is it the course, the place, being away from home, the social life, a lack of friends, the accommodation? The institutions in York all offer free Counselling services. York St John University and The University of York also run ‘Nightline' – this is a scheme whereby students can phone and speak to a volunteer confidentially, about anything that is troubling them. There are also other national organisations who may be able to help. See the Helplines section of this site.
Case Study
Name: Ausra Kucinskaite
Course: Economics
Institution: University of York
I am a first year student doing BSC Economics at the University of York. I come from Latvia, but I have done my A-levels in England. After A-levels I took a gap year and worked for a year for IBM in London as Sales Support in Financial Markets, which taught me a lot about how big organisations operate and gave me real-life examples of the Economic theories that I am now studying at the university.
I decided to come to York to do my degree because the University of York has a very good reputation for its teaching, especially in my department. I also knew that York is a very nice city and has a big student community. I am very happy with my choice as there are so many things to do and get involved in at the university such as societies, clubs, the Student Union and College Committees and there is a very supportive atmosphere here. The city caters for student needs – it has great shops, a lot of pubs and bars and student nights in its clubs – all within walking distance from the university.
I would definitely recommend York as a great place to be a student!