First visits home force students to readjust

By Samantha Ganey

Daily Staff Reporter

Engineering freshman Scott Ureel said he felt displaced and comfortable at the same time while at home in the Chicago suburb of Western Springs - a dichotomy of feelings that many students said they encountered after they had returned home for the first time as freshmen.

"I come home, and it feels like you've been there, and you haven't. You talk with your friends, and it's the same, but it's not," Ureel said.

Clinical Psychologist Jim Whiteside from the University's Counseling and Psychological Services said going home for the first time, both parents and students need to understand the evolution taking place, where students are becoming adults.

"It's a time of change and transition for students and parents - especially for first-year students," Whiteside said.

The days of students being told to clean their rooms are over when returning home, because there's hardly anything to clean in their nearly vacant rooms.

LSA freshman Will Gatziolis said his room in Chicago was "pretty empty" but admitted "it still feels right."

Ureel sympathized with Gatziolis. "There's nothing there," he said. "There's still furniture, but there's nothing on the walls except one picture," he said.

Whiteside said students may experience anxiety in dealing with feelings of being visitors in their own homes.

"My impression has often been that students come back from Thanksgiving even more stressed out than before paradoxically enough," Whiteside said.

When students walk through their front doors over breaks, parents are not always ready for the changes in their children. "I had dyed my hair - bleached it. My dad said, 'What's going on there?'" Engineering sophomore Blair Miller said about his return home to Battle Creek.

LSA junior Tim Barry said his parents have displayed the same reaction every time he's gone home to Chicago.

"My parents, every time they see me, think I've grown three to four inches. Now, I'm seven feet."

No matter what initial reaction parents have, many students enjoyed having someone take care of them for a few days. Barry recalled the nurturing questions he routinely gets from his parents over holiday breaks. "Do you need anything? Do you need your laundry done?" Barry said his parents always ask him. "Of course, there are the typical Thanksgiving and Christmas trips to see every doctor."

Ureel recognized his parents' exceptional generosity. "You know Mom and Dad are a lot nicer to you. They haven't seen you in a while."

Returning home for his third Thanksgiving, Barry has noticed that parents get progressively nicer.

"My parents wanted me to go out to the bar with them. My mom asked me, 'Do you have a fake ID?' I was not exactly sure how to play that one," he said.