There is probably not a single person on earth who some time or other does not suffer from homesickness. It attacks school girls, especially freshmen, in its worst forms. There is no misery comparable to that extreme longing for home which one feels can not possibly be satisfied for endless months. It makes the first few days at school almost unendurable. The newness and strangeness of college and the difficulty of adapting oneself to surroundings totally different from those to which one has been accustomed cause one involuntarily to turn one’s thoughts towards home. It has probably never looked so sweet and inviting as when viewed from this distance.
Without doubt, the first few days of college life are extremely difficult for incoming freshmen. The strain of getting settled, the lack of friends, the lessons which at first seem long and hard make one feel very small and miserable. The glamour of being a “college girl” seems to have disappeared far into the distance and one thinks longingly of the happiness of the past summer and the absence of care and worry which one enjoyed at that time.
The old girls at Salem do all that they can to make the new ones feel more at home, but one must remember that their time is largely taken up with their own duties. The lonely freshman has a miserable feeling that everybody knows everybody else but her.
Fortunately, homesickness is not an incurable malady. The best and speediest remedy is to cease thinking about oneself and to take an interest in outside activities and in making new friends. It is surprising how rapidly homesickness disappears, and other interests take its place. One cannot be busy and homesick too, and one is much happier busy. There is always so much to be done that one has little time to waste in tears and in feeling miserable.
Sometimes a girl thinks she cannot possibly endure the new life and the separation from home; she gives up and leaves before having had a real taste of the joys of college life. The girl that sticks it out and resolves to make the best of things has a feeling of triumph and accomplishment at the end that compensates fully for the unhappiness which she may have felt at first. If one remembers that she is not the only homesick girl at school, that it is possible to have a good time s well as to work hard, and that Christmas holidays with all their joys are not very far in the future, she will find that homesickness will rapidly disappear to be succeeded by a feeling of contentment and eager anticipation.
--Lenora Taylor
From page 3 of The Salemite, the Salem College Student newspaper, Winston-Salem, N.C., Sept. 12, 1925
newspapers.digitalnc.org/lccn/2015236777/1925-09-12/ed-3/
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