Texan Mosaic

By Kristin Ortiz

Easter break is over.  While many students headed home for a quick Easter holiday, some

SPC students were too far from home to make the trip.  Whether home is a couple of hour’s drive or a day’s flight away, homesickness can be a problem.   That may be especially true on holidays.

What is homesickness?  According to one article on WebMD: “Homesickness is the feeling of emotional distress when you’re away from home and in a new and unfamiliar environment.”  The same article reports 50% to 75% of the general population has felt homesick at least once in their life.

 “I think distance is hard on anybody,” says Rachel Montgomery, a licensed counselor at the South Plains College Wellness Center, “but you know there are some people who cope better with the distance.  I think it just depends on the person.”

      It stands to reason that students, who may be living away from home for the first time, may suffer from homesickness. 

       “If they are far from home and there is a lot of distance between families, they get homesick,” Montgomery states.

           Montgomery says the start of the Covid-19 pandemic was a reminder about how much people need connection.

           “I saw an influx of students come in for counseling,” she says, “because they needed that human connection, even telehealth sessions.”

WebMD lists depression, grief, and physical symptoms that can result from homesickness.  It also says homesickness can affect productivity.

So, what could that mean to a student’s academic performance?  Research appears to confirm what common sense would say.  It can be damaging.

       For instance, one study published in a June 2022 article from Frontiers in Psychiatry says, “It was confirmed that academic and family stress leads to depression among students, negatively affecting their academic performance and learning outcomes.”  

      And think about how thoughts of home may intensify because of a death in the family.  Or an illness.  Or any other crisis.

     SPC student Landon Smith is not the only student who was affected by devastating wildfires in the Texas Panhandle at the end of February.  He is in classes at the Lubbock Downtown Center campus but his hometown is Canadian, Texas, one of the areas hard hit by the fires.   

     He says on the day the fires started his mother was evacuating but his brother and father were staying, and they weren’t answering their phones.

         “I finally got a hold of my mom,” he says, “and she had told me that our house burned down.”

     A couple of hours later, he says, his dad checked and it wasn’t their house that had burned.

     “It was our neighbors’ and everyone beside us and below our house,” he says.  “And that ours made it, but still it’s a lot for me because just seeing the impact that it had going back a week later and just seeing and knowing what those houses looked like before and going back and just seeing them gone and totally destroyed and just seeing people hurting it really hurt me.”

     Through all of that, Smith says he didn’t miss any classes.  But, as he says, it was “a lot”. 

     “I didn’t know till I got back to my hometown how bad it really was,” he says.

     According to a 2008 article on EduMed.org, an organization that connects students to the medical field, some of the many ways any student might experience grief is through the loss of a loved one, a medical diagnosis, a traumatic event, or the end of a relationship.

     And, as Montgomery points out, any kind of mental health issue, such as depression, may be handled differently depending on someone’s culture and family upbringing.

     “I think if somebody didn’t grow up in a home where mental health was talked about,” Montgomery says, “they don’t say anything about it and think it is bad.”

Although students may face homesickness, grief over the loss of a loved one, or any other crisis while away from home, SPC has resources that can help.   Montgomery says there are counseling centers at every campus including Levelland, Plainview, Lubbock, and the Reece Center. These resources are free for all South Plains College students and can be found at Personal Counseling (southplainscollege.edu)

Montgomery also suggests that students could talk with SPC instructors.

 “SPC instructors are really great at connecting with that student and connecting them with those resources,” she says.

Along with counseling, self-care can be a way to cope with homesickness or grief.   WebMd suggests attending events, taking part in sports, and finding a new “favorite” place that could start to feel like home.  It also suggests staying in contact with those back “home”.

No student has the so called “perfect life” and each one deals with family issues differently, but the knowledge that others also face feelings of homesickness or worse because they are a long way from home can be beneficial. 

In other words, it’s normal to feel that way some times more than others.  And at least it may help knowing that being away from “home” doesn’t have to mean you’re alone.