Can Homesickness affect second-year students?

Missing home is normal. Some people take more time to adapt to university; however, when we enter our second or even final year, we can also suffer from homesickness. Sometimes we can just want to go home and the most frustrating thing for me is not being able to.

At Warwick, you will find people from different realities and different backgrounds. From my experience as an international student, you cannot go home that often and we have 2 main reasons: it is so far away and it is so expensive. For me going home at least take me 18h while other friends can go home for the weekend I don’t have that benefit. And yes sometimes I would like to have it. However, I believe this impediment has made me stronger, resilient and grateful every time I can reach home. When the COVID 19 pandemic was at its peak, it was even harder to go home and to return to the UK: a lot of papers, regulations, and problems, I even had to stay 2 weeks in the US as was the only option to avoid the hotel quarantine in the UK which from my point of view was completely unfair as I was fully vaccinated. Now It is easier thankfully. I am getting less stressed and that is kind of a miracle!

My 2021 was travelling around the world with the fear that regulations were going to change the next day and I was going to change my plans again and again. It is hard as I wanted to go home more often but It was so stressful.

Now, Writing from Amsterdam just waiting to take a flight to Lima makes everything different. I think sometimes when everything is fine we do not miss that much home; but when things start to get wrong, we realised how even though we can have many friends, we are so alone!

When problems happen back at home, I can’t just take a flight to see my parents and it’s even harder to see I can do nothing about it.

My terms 2 and 3 had that feeling inside of me; hopefully, it is going to end soon and we will see again. Maybe it is because of who I am. In Latin America, family is the most important thing. However, family also includes your closest friends (what I call “the family you choose”).

My friends at Warwick made me feel that I was alone. They were with me in the good and the bad moments. They were to listen to me, to talk or maybe don’t; they are simply the best people I have ever met.

And yes, Homesickness can affect everyone at any time in any situation. We try to avoid it. We are convinced that we are old enough, independent, self-sufficient, but even if we are all of this, we all deserve a break with nice food, nice people, back at home and far away of the fast pace of the university experience.