In college, you are often told that if you aren’t having fun, you’re at the “wrong school.” Students are so bombarded with the idea that if you miss home for even a minute, you aren’t living your college experience to its fullest extent.
Well, that’s bullsh*t.
Luckily for me, I come from a loving, nurturing home — and I’m completely aware that many college students are not as lucky, and don’t miss their home at all. That’s totally okay.
However, I think that the whole notion of thinking you’re at the wrong school if you miss your home should be done away with entirely. For many, home means a safe space — a space where you’re completely surrounded by people you love and who love you in return. It means a break from the constant rigor and pressure of college, and a place to relax in your childhood home. It means a chance to visit your friends from high school, or anyone in your hometown that you don’t get to see as often.
The concept of thinking you’re at the wrong school if you’re homesick can make a lot of people wrongfully feel like they’re not at the right school. It is 10000 percent okay to not be having fun every second of every day – in fact, if you are, you probably aren’t doing very well in your classes. Wanting to go home, not having fun and being homesick are all completely okay. Shaming people for wanting a break from the constant pressure and anxiety of college is what isn’t okay. Everyone is entitled to their own feelings and their own ways of dealing with stress.
Especially around the times of breaks, students can feel like their plans to go home aren’t good enough, especially when all their friends have plans to go to Cabo, Cancun or overseas. Again, it is completely okay to not only go home, but want to go home. Speaking personally, whenever I come home from school I crash for about 12 hours in my (incredibly) comfortable bed and then binge watch Project Runway with my mom, and I wouldn’t trade that for anything in the world, including a margarita on the beach.
Let people do what they want. If that means going home only when necessary, if that’s going home every other weekend, if that’s talking about their cat all the time that they miss, whatever it is, let people do their own thing. You may deal with stress in an entirely different way than your friends, and that is entirely okay.
Photo credits: cover photo, 1, 2, 3.