When Home Doesn't Feel Like Home
Going off to college has a way of changing ones' perspective on their old lifestyle and can reflect a change in priorities and interests. This article will engage with these feelings and hopefully help students begin to grapple with and maybe even appreciate this change.
By Xavier Royer — June 20, 2023
It is easy for students to get wrapped up in the hustle and bustle of university life. Classes, extracurriculars, part-time jobs, projects, and, hopefully, at least some semblance of a social life tend to dominate students' attention. This is particularly true during a student's first year, when they in the transitionary phase between the life they lived as a high school student and their new, more independent university lifestyle. In most circumstances, however, students eventually come home. Though not right away, students' relationship with their hometown and "old" life will evolve over time, and that change can be uncomfortable. Even if it is not necessarily in a bad way, going off to college has a way of changing ones' perspective on their old lifestyle and can reflect a change in priorities and interests. This article will engage with these feelings and hopefully help students begin to grapple with and maybe even appreciate this change.
One common sentiment is that "home" can feel old or outdated. Many of us grew up in communities that had a standardized culture and norms everyone adhered to. One of the best aspects of a college experience is taking students of the comfort zones of the areas they grew up and shaking them up all together. Just as roommates, I had a hipster from a private high school, a kid from a lower-middle class neighborhood who introduced me to Chance the Rapper, and a full-blown cowboy who showed cows at the state fair as a kid. This is great for developing a more well-rounded world view, but does have the unfortunate side effect of making a student's former life seem one-dimensional. What is important to keep in mind is that students' hometowns are what makes them unique. This seems obvious, but students often forget to include themselves in this calculus. Even if student's never felt great fondness for the place they came from, they still would not be who they are today without it. Everything may seem outdated relative to their new university life, but to someone else a student's former community is the diversity they have learned to appreciate at college. The things students used to enjoy about their hometown can still be fun.
While on one hand student's may have feel they moved past their hometown, on the other hand students may feel their community or family may have moved on without them. Sometimes the community itself physically moves on. New businesses may have popped up since a student left, or their parents, particularly if they are empty nesters now, may have moved out of their childhood home. Family and friends also tend to move on. People get married, babies are born, and kids grow up. It can be tough to leave behind a younger sibling only to see them again over break, now much taller and weirdly more mature than you left them. Students, particularly if they traveled far away for school, may also miss out on some birthdays or other events that they used to be able to attend when they were living with their parents. This can cause students to feel like they are missing out, and that life back home is going on without them. The best way I have found to reconcile these feelings is to appreciate that life should be continuing without them.
If students care about their families and former communities, they should want them to continue to grow and be successful. Just because students can't be there in the same capacity they once were, does not mean that they can't still be excited for their communities and families when they hit important milestones or have big achievements. The new challenge for students is being able to celebrate this success remotely. Likewise, students should keep in mind that they are at school growing and developing themselves. Their success is a good reflection on their family and hometown, and that the best thing they can do to be a part of that growth they feel they are missing out on is to be great themselves. They can return to home not only to witness the amazing things that have been happening while they have been away, but to share the great things they themselves have been doing.
Creating a new life away from home can be difficult. Maintaining a positive relationship with that home is a challenge in and of itself. This article has provided some potential perspectives to deal with the feelings that come from that transition. The key word is perspective, and that is where students should focus their energy when dealing with these kinds of feelings. They cannot change the fact that their home life and they themselves continue to change at different rates and in different ways. However, they can change their outlook on the situation, and develop a more positive view on the situation.
Xavier Royer
I am currently a full time instructor at a William Penn University, a small private university in Iowa. I am the lone political science faculty member there. In my time teaching, I have already connected with an incredible cohort of students in ways I could never have expected. Partnering with SAGE will allow me the opportunity to help even more students across the globe navigate those tricky questions.
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