Hey everyone,
I'm Eli,
and today I want to talk to you guys about homesickness.
One of the best things about LSE
is that the university has such a diverse student body;
but that means that homesickness will be different for everyone
because there are students who've moved to five different countries
throughout their lives,
and there's also students like me,
who had never even moved out of their hometown before coming to London.
But the amount of times that you've moved before
shouldn't really determine whether you're allowed to feel homesick or not,
so don't worry about that.
It's a really normal feeling
and I'm pretty sure that the majority of us definitely experience it to some extent.
When I came to university I had been in lockdown for six months
and then in a two week quarantine with my mum,
so by the time, it was all over I was so excited to start my university experience,
meet everyone,
become independent,
but, when I was alone in my hall room for the first time after my mum had left,
I felt so lonely and overwhelmed,
and this is where my homesickness started.
I hope that by sharing my experience and the three main things I learned
I can help you guys along the way.
So first of all, be honest!
Also the people you don't really know yet -
I know it's really hard and for me it took me a lot of courage to finally speak up
about it and tell people that I'm homesick because
I just assumed that I would probably be the only one - which was in the end not true -
because I realised that more than half of the people I talked to
were actually in the same boat as me and that surprised me so much
because I literally didn't see any one person who I thought "oh they seem homesick";
and that was the same for me actually,
like every time I was around my friends,
I was so excited and grateful to be in London
and just happy to meet everyone,
so obviously I would also not really seem homesick.
So that's something that you should keep in mind -
you have to talk about it.
In the end, you have to remember that it's nothing to be ashamed of.
It feels really hard to speak up about it but in the end,
it's a win-win situation because you'll feel better
and the other person will either relate or they can support you
and you can bond over that.
I promise you that homesickness fades,
in the end, you will fall in love with London
and London will become the place that you'll become homesick of - if you go home -
so don't worry about it.
London is an amazing city,
the architecture is so nice,
the parks are so cool too,
so really don't worry about it - it's going to be all okay,
but the first step is to talk about it!
Another tip that I want to share with you guys is actually
a tip that I learned while being honest
because in Freshers' Week we had a lot of Zoom meetings of our department,
and in one of them we were put into a breakout room
with one professor and three students.
Our professor really wanted to check in with us
and she was like "oh, how are you guys really doing, like how are you really,
are you actually happy?"
And I was having such a bad day,
I was so overwhelmed by everything and also super exhausted,
because I was in quarantine for two weeks,
and all of a sudden I was walking 10 kilometers every day,
and just meeting so many people that
I was just physically and mentally just exhausted.
And I started crying on the Zoom call,
it was a very weird situation at first,
but in the end, it was so nice.
She was so supportive and also the other students reacted
in a really nice way so I felt really welcome there.
And she gave me an amazing tip that I want to show you guys too
so shout out to Jet - thank you so much for being so supportive!
She gave me the tip which is that every morning,
you should schedule a call of someone from home,
while walking through your new neighborhood,
because apparently, mornings are a time where you're more likely to feel homesick
because you have the whole day in front of you
and maybe a lot of tasks to complete,
or maybe you don't have anything to do,
and you're like "whoa, what am I supposed to do?",
"where are my friends?" and all that.
So if you have something in the morning,
where you can explore your surroundings to become more familiar
with an unfamiliar place,
while talking to someone you're really familiar to and that you actually miss,
it's really good combination.
And it was so nice for me,
I would just walk around, grab a coffee.
And this importance of familiarity also brings me to my last tip,
which is to get a routine
because it all has to do with familiarity.
Homesickness is not only about missing your mom or your best friend,
or your pet.
It's actually also about missing your old life.
You're being put into this new atmosphere,
into this new place
and no matter how grateful you are,
no matter how much you want to be there,
there's still a certain uncertainty that just you can't eliminate immediately.
So by getting a routine,
you get used to the place -
you get used to always going to bed at that time,
or having the same easy breakfast every morning,
scheduling a certain time to call your family,
or just doing things in a similar way for a few weeks
will really help you get accustomed to London.
And don't worry, this is not the routine that you have to keep forever.
You can throw it away after a few weeks
but for me, it really helped me to do certain things similar every day
because that just made me more comfortable in my surroundings,
and it made it feel like home and that's what it's supposed to be.
So to sum it up, make sure to be honest -
you can talk to your hallmates, your classmates, your academic mentors,
literally it's their job, so don't be ashamed to tell them about it.
And then also LSE has a counseling service,
where you get six appointments for free every year
so you can talk to them about homesickness or any other concerns you have.
My second tip was to schedule those calls and make sure you explore those areas,
also, make sure to explore those areas
with your friends and your hall mates,
just let everyone tag along - obviously not when you're talking to your family -
but you know, in general, explore with your friends -
it's so nice and you'll really fall in love with London.
And then the last tip was to
get this routine to become more familiar with your new life
and reduce this uncertainty.
So don't worry about it - it's going to get better.
So I really hope that you guys are going to get over homesickness soon
and I hope this video helped a little bit
and I'll see you in the next one, bye!