Should I stay or should I go?

Going home too often can affect student adjustment to USD

Jackie Marquez / Asst. Opinion Editor / The USD Vista

As a first-year, I knew homesickness well. After moving 300 miles south, I was in a new place, surrounded by new faces. My first semester of college I only went home once, not counting holiday breaks. For some students, however, home is just a short car ride away. With comfort and familiarity nearby, some college students opt to routinely go home at the end of the school week.

While going home can be reassuring, leaving college too often prevents students from truly experiencing their new school. Being far from home forced me to stay near campus, participate in school events and connect with the people around me.

By going home too often, students miss out on those experiences that make school feel like home. Ultimately, going home excessively impacts students’ social lives in negative ways.
While being able to go home provides a safety net of sorts, some students say that going home often makes it harder to feel like they truly are a part of the USD community.

Matthew Pearson, a USD sophomore and San Diego native, explains how frequently going home impacted his experience connecting to college. During his freshman year, Pearson was a commuter student. He explained that going home every day was detrimental to his college socialization.

“Because I was living off campus, I had almost no social life. I couldn’t just hang out in people’s dorms for hours like other students. Once my classes were over for the day, I just went home,” Pearson stated.  

Now in his second year, he’s decided to live on campus. To Pearson, living on campus while still close to home is the perfect balance. “I don’t have to worry about being homesick, but at the same time, I don’t feel like I need to go home too often,” Pearson said.

Proximity to home is a resource that allows students to get support when they need it. However, for a safety net to be useful, students need to step out of their comfort zone. If a student is going home every chance they get, they miss new opportunities to grow closer to their new community.

USD sophomore Brianna Floyd, also from San Diego, weighs in on the necessity of going home in moderation.

“You need a reset every once in a while. For some, it’s going out with friends over the weekend. For others, it’s going home and spending time with your family,” Floyd stated.
While this reset is good every once in a while, Floyd added that it’s something that should be done sparingly. “If you go home every weekend, you’re missing out on potential experiences.”

Leaving school for the weekend can be beneficial to students, but it is necessary that it’s done in moderation.

According to Segue to College, a blog dedicated to understanding the transition from high school to college, going home too often as a freshman has a handful of potential negative consequences.

Going home too often can lead to students failing to develop independence from their family. It can create difficulty in forming college relationships, and it can also prevent students from learning how to handle long-distance relationships between family and friends. These outcomes put students who go home frequently at a disadvantage.

Forming friendships and relationships in college is a necessity for enjoying these years. To develop these relationships students must spend time with new people outside of class. If they’re going home too often they are not doing this. Learning how to handle long-distance relationships is also a necessity. Many students will move away from their family after college for work, so it is important that they learn how to manage these relationships from a distance before they are in that situation. Giving themselves space from home allows students to better practice these skills.

For some students, being far from home means going back to their hometown is a rarity.

As such, they’re not experiencing the same drawbacks as students close to home. Danica Rauch, a first-year at USD, reflects on how the six hour distance between her and her home in Arizona has encouraged her to embrace college life.

“I think it [being unable to go home] has forced me to try to get more involved and make new connections,” Raunch said.

Going home is helpful in moderation, but overdoing it can be harmful. It’s important that students are cognizant of how their decision to go home affects their adaptation to the college environment. Knowing yourself and how independent you are is key when determining whether or not you should make the journey home.