So you're feeling lonely?
1) Recognize that these thoughts are very typical and very normal.2) It can take awhile for a new place to feel like home.
3) Keep your door open when you are in your room
4) Spend as little time in your room as possible other than to sleep.
5) Attend evening and weekend events
6) Look into the array of extracurricular activities
7) Consider any opportunities to assume leadership roles
8) Consider seeking help at the counseling center.
9) Seek out other resources on campus that are there to support your intellectual and emotional well-being
10) Seek out mentors; these can be professors who seem interesting, coaches who seem challenging and supportive, etc.
11) Students are well served when they find study buddies and study groups
12) As students juggle all that is required of them, they benefit from cultivating habits of good self-care
13) Find your passion; follow your bliss
14) Commit to turning off your phone at least an hour every day.
and
15) _________________ ?
Only order bacon jalapeno mac & cheese while sober.
ReplyDeleteRemember that you're far from alone.
ReplyDeleteEat well and sleep enough. Everything seems worse when you're hungry and tired.
ReplyDeleteThis advice is for extraverts, or those trying to pass as extraverts. I would say shut your dorm room door most of the time, make sure to schedule plenty of quiet time, and focus on making one or two good friends rather than trying to meet everyone on campus.
ReplyDeleteShe does, indeed, seem to be focusing on extroverts (and/or assuming introverts don't get lonely). Much of her advice could, indeed, simply make introverts feel worse.
DeleteIt also seems to be aimed mostly at students with considerable amounts of free time (which doesn't describe my students. The place she teaches doesn't sound particularly elite, so I wonder whether it describes hers -- or maybe just the ones who talk to her about feeling lonely?)
I have to second Uggy's and Cassandra's comments about introverts, being one myself. Try getting to know people in your classes, or in some activity that you do because you actually enjoy it. You already have something in common with them. I got to know my best friend in college—who is still a friend, over forty years later—because we were fellow French majors, and I met my husband (also an introvert) because we sang in the same choir.
ReplyDeleteWhen I was in high school, my very dour Lutheran minister told me very dourly that in college, there would be women would would want to have SEX. It was one of the few times he turned out to be right. I was never lonely in college, although my GPA could have been higher.
ReplyDelete