The move to college can be terrifying for most students who go on to pursue higher education, especially when they move away from home. The toll it takes on an individual’s mental health is under-emphasised.
Being away from an environment you have grown to be familiar with for the first time can induce major anxiety based on various factors, such as:
Emotional: This may involve things such as homesickness and loss of familiarity, the lack of emotional support from family and friends, and the fear of the unknown.
Environmental: This involves feeling stressed whilst sorting out your possessions and picking what to bring with you, feeling exposed and out of place due to living in a new environment and drastic changes to living habits, and trying to navigate through a completely different area that contrasts with your home neighbourhood.
Financial: The fears of financial hardships involve budgeting, moving costs, navigating through first jobs, tuition rates, and debts that you and your family may face when going through college.
It is well known that the human mind craves familiarity and a sense of belonging, and moving away from this familiarity and relationships in which you belong contradicts everything your mind is craving, making you spiral.
You are thrown into a completely new world of self-navigation, forced to mingle with individuals you have never seen before, compelled to interact with environments and situations you have no prior knowledge of, and to change your habits and behaviours in certain situations.
This can be extremely burdensome to a young adult who just wants to make it in life. It is beneficial to seek the advice of alumni and experts to help you deal with these anxieties.
Firstly, validate your own emotional experience, rather than denying your fears and anxieties and trying to ‘suck it up’ because you are an adult. Let yourself feel what you feel. The first step to overcoming your anxiety is accepting it; do not label yourself as dramatic or immature, because you did not choose to react the way you did, it is in your nature to be emotional. Accepting how you feel can help you navigate and make sense of what you are feeling.
Develop anxiety management tools – engage in healthy coping mechanisms such as mindfulness, exercising, reading, listening to music, or even sleeping to help you calm down when you feel you are spiralling. It is important to know what helps calm you down, and ensure it is something you can engage in immediately and won’t harm you physically. Having something to turn to when all gets overwhelming can be highly beneficial when first navigating through college.
Exposure is important – as much as we may not like to hear it, putting yourself out there can really help. Ensuring that it is within your emotional capacity, exposure to your new environment and meeting new individuals that you are likely to interact with in the long run can help you familiarise yourself to this alien world, and it can help you fight your fears of never belonging or being able to benefit from your experiences.
Utilise your professional sources – seeking professional care when you can is always recommended, especially when it comes to your mental health. Contacting local helplines and websites as well as on-campus counselling centres and having a professional to talk to can help you navigate your emotions and find peace of mind as they help you look at your perspectives objectively, as well as helping you identify any other underlying mental health concerns.
It is important to understand that feeling uneasy when being thrown into new experiences is completely normal. It does not indicate weakness or immaturity, but just goes to remind you that you are human.
You are living for the first time; of course the unknown is frightening, but it is vital that you do not pressurise yourself into ‘overcoming’ what you feel, the world can wait as long as your mental health is not on the line. Just allow yourself to feel while also soaking up everything your new life has to offer; people have done it before and so can you.