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Mentor Advice

Question

What are the best ways to avoid being home-sick?

3 Replies from Mentors

  • mentor picture Ana Campos
     
    Ana Campos
    Associate Director, Office of Undergraduate Student Housing
    University of Chicago
    I think one of the best ways that I found helped my friends who were homesick (I never was), was...
    I think one of the best ways that I found helped my friends who were homesick (I never was), was to remind them that this visit was temporary. That this was a once in a lifetime opportunity/experience, so we needed to just put ourselves out there and enjoy it as much as possible. If they were having a hard time, I’d ask them what they did enjoy/like about the experience thus far – however minor – and use that as the starting point. I also found that if they spent all their time thinking about their significant other and/or family back home – and constantly writing to them or calling them – that it was all the harder to help them to connect. Ultimately, people have to make up their own mind about the situation that they are in – to make the most of it – or to be sad. I would do what I could to continually invite them to do things with me and others from our group or local friends we had made so that they didn’t just sit in their bedroom missing home. Now, 20 years later, the two friends that I had who were quite homesick while we were abroad, have both been married for many years to that significant other that they missed so much while we were abroad, and both, ultimately, have fond memories of their time abroad.