It’s been just over a month since move-in day for over 2,000 tri-campus students. During this time, classes have started, friendships have formed and passions discovered.
However, the first month of any new experience can be difficult. Many students find relating to others important.
During her first month, freshman Kaila Bryant faced many of the obstacles freshman, or any college students, experience.
“Definitely adjusting to having a different schedule every day has been one thing,” Bryant said. “Just like being more accountable for [things like] making myself have time to eat, because sometimes time gets away from me and I'll realize I haven't had lunch, prioritizing stuff that I used to do back home … But it’s been great meeting new people. It’s definitely just a very big change.”
Many students find homesickness one of the most difficult adjustments to overcome.
Saint Mary’s freshman Hannah Polite wrestled with homesickness during her first few weeks on campus. She said reaching out to new and old connections helped her feel better.
“I tried to make new friends, but I did talk to my family a lot. I called my sister almost every day and called my mom a few days a week, same thing with my dad,” Polite said. “I also called my cousin who went here, just to see how she adjusted too.”
Freshman Nathan Miller has made sure to dedicate time to take a break from classes and homework in order to stay in touch with friends and family. This time helps him with homesickness and maintaining those relationships, he said.
“I still keep in contact with a lot of my friends back home. Like I specifically carve out like an hour, hour and a half, sometimes even two hours, depending on how much homework I have, specifically for just texting my friends back home,” Miller said.
Bryant experiences homesickness for her home in Los Angeles, but in a more passive way.
“I haven’t been feeling as homesick as I expected when coming here. There hasn’t been any time (to be). It’s more of just seeing what my family is doing back home,” Bryant said.
Bryant said he video calls his little brother, who shows him his dog back home.
Saint Mary’s senior Jennifer Utterback remembers her first year at college as incredibly difficult for her, but she also remembers receiving help from the Health and Counseling Center, which offers free counseling sessions and other resources for Saint Mary’s College students.
“I definitely was very much in denial about [homesickness], and it kind of honestly hit me my second semester. I had really poor mental health and so I started thinking to myself, ‘I want to go home, I can’t deal [with this]’ ... [so] I set up a counseling appointment,” Utterback said.
Although she was nervous for the appointment, she said she found a useful outlet there.
Counselor Alexa Zapata Fernandez works with Saint Mary’s students by talking them through adjusting to college life. She wants to provide a safe space for anyone needing someone to talk to or understand what they’re feeling.
“We’re here to just provide support wherever the students are, and it doesn't necessarily have to be that you’re going through a breakup or some huge thing in your life. It could very well just be like, ‘Hey, I just want to check in just get this off my chest,’” Fernandez said.
Freshman Donovan Ligier is a part of the Transformational Leaders Program, which offers additional resources to him.
“Just when I felt like I needed something, my scholarship advisors have been the first people I go to because they can always point me in the direction of something that I could use,” Ligier said.
Many freshmen also struggle to choose their intended major. Officially, students cannot declare a major until their sophomore year, but most students take introductory courses in their potential field of study to acquaint themselves with their major.
Utterback decided to change her major during her sophomore year, a decision which caused some criticism from other students.
“At the end of my first semester of sophomore year, I started doing managerial accounting … And I kind of had a little bit of a crisis. I didn’t really know who I was, and I really didn’t want to do accounting, but I wanted to make other people happy.”
Although she said some people questioned whether she would keep the same job opportunities, she is happy about the switch.
“I was just really scared of changing everything,“ Utterback said. “It was really hard for me for a while. But the opportunities I also got from switching my major [were] a lot better.”
Polite also recently decided to change her major from biology to chemistry to prepare herself for medical school. She said talking with different faculty members and academic advisors and using them as a resource greatly helped her decision-making process.
“They helped me a lot to see what the different senior compositions would look like,” Polite said.
Miller, currently planning to be an aerospace engineering major, looks forward to upcoming “exploration days” in his introductory engineering class to help his decision making.
“I’m considering the switch to civil engineering just because aerospace doesn’t as directly benefit people as [much as] civil engineering, and that’s something that I’m interested in doing,” Miller said. “Also, there’s a lot of infrastructure stuff with civil engineering, like, especially traffic management. That just sounds really interesting,” Miller said.
From homesickness and changing a major to finding on-campus resources and making new friends, students can relate to one another during their first month of college.
“I guess don’t be afraid to reach out,” Ligier said. “I think a lot of people aren’t as successful in the beginning of college … because they don’t know when, they don’t know how, or might be too afraid to reach out. But the thing is, everybody needs something. And there’s always somebody here for something you need.”
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