What’s the biggest stressor or difficulty your college student faced in their first year?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Things normally seen

Room-mate issues
Lack of friends/loneliness/home sickness/not fitting in
Mental disease
Being raped or mugged or roofied
Drug addiction
Academic pressure
Getting sucked into destructive behavior and bad company
Toxic frat/sorority culture and being bullied
Lack of money, burden of loans, poverty
Food insecurity
Visa and work permit issues
Doing something illegal

Uh, most of this is NOT normal. Where is your kid?!

DP

I think this list is very good and every school will have students with these issues.

[Anonymous]

General dorm living - noise, filth, cliques.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Making friends. In some way or another her friend group until she left for college had evolved from her friend group from Kindergarten. She never was in a situation where she knew no one and had to make new friends. The first semester was hard trying to navigate that. Her first roommate left after first semester because she was homesick and even before then she went home on the weekends. Her second roommate was nice but already had an established friend group and my daughter didn't feel like she fit in with them. By the end of second semester she had formed a good group of friends through a club sport and activities.

This was true for my kid too. He didn’t really know how to make friends as an adult. Unfortunately he pledged a bad fraternity and it really ruined his freshman year. He ended up transferring.

What school to what school?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Attempting a long distance relationship. Kid didn’t seem to really acclimate to college til they broke up.

Always a terrible idea.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The level of work each class takes and time management for homework, projects and exams. Advocating for themselves with professors and navigating a bureaucratic system. Freshman dorm experiences - not a great place to meet people, no a/c and getting use to communal bathrooms and showers. Roommate was hardly around but was compatible. Always being tired and stressed.

ALL of this - but especially understanding the need for and how-to of self-advocacy and speaking up. Seems to be much better at this Sophomore year. I think the stressors will be different between highly demanding schools (sounds like the above) and schools that are more fun, but where you have to worry more about basic safety, drugs, cheating, and theft. IN the latter, changing dorms can make a big difference in QOL.

[Anonymous]

It took a few months for the kids to realize the first wave of “friends” they made were psycho manipulative losers. Once those were shed, things got better.

[Anonymous]

Time management with so much unstructured time. Sleep problems and going to bed too late.

[Anonymous]

Lining up housing for Sophomore year. Because of tight rental markets the process started immediately after winter break and it was clearly a source of stress. Finding roommates wasn't the issue, just chasing down leads on availability was difficult. Older DC had guaranteed housing all four years, so this caught us off guard.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Things normally seen

Room-mate issues
Lack of friends/loneliness/home sickness/not fitting in
Mental disease
Being raped or mugged or roofied
Drug addiction
Academic pressure
Getting sucked into destructive behavior and bad company
Toxic frat/sorority culture and being bullied
Lack of money, burden of loans, poverty
Food insecurity
Visa and work permit issues
Doing something illegal

Uh, most of this is NOT normal. Where is your kid?!

DP

I think this list is very good and every school will have students with these issues.

Ok, but the question was regarding YOUR student.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Lining up housing for Sophomore year. Because of tight rental markets the process started immediately after winter break and it was clearly a source of stress. Finding roommates wasn't the issue, just chasing down leads on availability was difficult. Older DC had guaranteed housing all four years, so this caught us off guard.

What school?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Lining up housing for Sophomore year. Because of tight rental markets the process started immediately after winter break and it was clearly a source of stress. Finding roommates wasn't the issue, just chasing down leads on availability was difficult. Older DC had guaranteed housing all four years, so this caught us off guard.

This was a source of stress for ours, as well. The hunt started before winter break freshman year. Common problem in college towns that don’t guarantee housing after the first year.

[Anonymous]

+1 for finding HER friend group beyond her freshman hall, which seems to have a good amount of typical (though more typical in MS and HS) teenage girl drama/dynamics. We know it will come, but it's really been the only struggle so far.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Lining up housing for Sophomore year. Because of tight rental markets the process started immediately after winter break and it was clearly a source of stress. Finding roommates wasn't the issue, just chasing down leads on availability was difficult. Older DC had guaranteed housing all four years, so this caught us off guard.

+ 1. Dealing with off campus “corporations “ as a 19 year old. Ugh.

[Anonymous]

Ours had a health issue and it was the first time she had to navigate an illness solo and from several hours away. It was a good reminder to have all of the appropriate release documents signed so the doctors could talk with us about test results and help us determine whether we needed to come.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Lining up housing for Sophomore year. Because of tight rental markets the process started immediately after winter break and it was clearly a source of stress. Finding roommates wasn't the issue, just chasing down leads on availability was difficult. Older DC had guaranteed housing all four years, so this caught us off guard.

This was a source of stress for ours, as well. The hunt started before winter break freshman year. Common problem in college towns that don’t guarantee housing after the first year.

Ugh I’m worried about this! My kid is counting on living in Greek housing sophomore year but rush is in the spring so who knows? Super stressful.