Living away from home

Look around you. More than one out of every three students attending UW Seattle comes from outside of Washington state. According to the Office of the Registrar, enrollment at UW Seattle in winter 2014 was a combined 34.3 percent for out-of-state and international students. These students spend a long time far away from home, and may feel a high level of culture shock or homesickness. For me, physically being separated for a long term from my parents and younger brother has fundamentally changed the way I live and deal with the difficulties that come up in my daily life. I had always wanted others to view me as a laid-back, independent person with a calm demeanor. During my final year in high school I would often daydream about the freedom that attending college would be able to offer me. Even though my parents weren’t really restrictive in terms of what I could and could not do, I had a longing for adventure and intense personal growth that I believed would only materialize if I lived away from them. Thus, I went to college with no reservations whatsoever. During my first quarter, I was so preoccupied with adapting to the completely new environment around me that I never even thought about home. However, as time went on, I was sometimes overly stressed and felt I could not manage on my own. It was at these times that I got homesick. But because my family was back in Hong Kong, I have had to rely solely on myself and my closest friends, most of whom also did not have any family in the greater Seattle area. It hit me real hard when I realized that I just had to suck it up, or leave those problems unresolved. There are others, however, who have different perspectives on the same issue. “Having the opportunity to completely and arbitrarily choose my direction in life was a new concept for me coming into college,” said sophomore Ashley Kneller, who is from Florida. “I now find that I have to constantly adapt to balancing what I need to do, what I should do, and what I want to do.” Beyond taking care of things on my own, I have also come to rely on my closest friends for both emotional and material support. Discussions about our short and long term plans have definitely made me more comfortable over making those hard decisions. In terms of material support, at the end of the year we found a way to transport and store all our stuff over the summer break. This assorted stuff included various boxes, trash bags, mini-fridges, printers and snowboards. None of us had parents who could just simply come by to pick up our belongings, so this was the only way. However, we did not only help each other move out. Far from it. Early on in the year, we hung out on the weekends, while others who lived nearby would go back home. Over time, I came to feel an intense solidarity with each of these individuals and they felt like family to me. Together, we overcame the challenges and celebrate the triumphs of living away from home, while shaping ourselves into the people that we want to become. This mutual solidarity forms the foundation of our friendship. However, loneliness can still kick in. Because I was unable to go home, and because of all my friend’s sporadic availability, occasionally I would not be able to have the emotional company that I felt I needed to avoid going crazy. Dealing with loneliness is something every college student living on campus has to deal with at one point or another, especially if going home for the weekend isn’t an option. Over time, I combated these insecurities by pursuing my own hobbies and interests (I run and ride my bike regularly), by intentionally meeting new people, and by participating in more campus activities. These changes in my daily life have unequivocally made me a happier and more confident person, in light of living far away from home. “You need to push yourself harder instead of avoiding those problems,” said Fleur Li, an international student from China. “[Living away from home] has been the hardest and most amazing part of my life.” I totally agree with this. Over and over again I have been pushed beyond my comfort zone, and in retrospect, this is what makes life amazing. Reach contributing writer Steve Xu at development@dailyuw.com. Twitter: @steveeeexu94

Living away from home

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