I Missed Home After One Night at College — Now, I Don’t Want to Leave My New City

When I was a college freshman in 2021, I moved halfway across the country from Michigan to attend school in New York. I loved the idea of living in the biggest city in America, but I was also an introverted, anxious homebody. My 700-mile move would turn out to be a great idea … eventually. But in the beginning, I experienced a learning curve of living by myself and the feeling of homesickness that followed.

The first night I slept in my single dorm, I immediately began to miss home. I had just said goodbye to my parents and found a letter that they’d left on my desk. After reading it that night, it finally set in that I was living on my own and wouldn’t see my family until winter break. It was an emotional concept to accept.

Instead of looking into transferring back home and giving up on my dream of getting a media degree in New York (with a goal to work in publishing) at the first sign of homesickness, I found that I could alleviate it with specific activities.