It is very hard to fight off the many struggles that a college student might feel when they return home for the summer. Most of the struggles that a college student may face are problems that are out of their control. I know that I have had to face a few struggles since being back home for the summer after only finishing my first year of college. I can only imagine how the struggles soon become more evident and strenuous as the year's progress. No matter how much you dread returning back for classes and enjoying the time you have spent with friends and family, you still miss the friends you have met in college and want to get back to that new life you have created.
I feel like the biggest struggle for college students when coming home is having to get back in the groove of things. They find themselves having to return to old ways because they don't know how to navigate their surroundings anymore. The reason behind this is because when you go away to college, you go through a personal change. In college, you start to find out more about yourself and the aspirations that you want to achieve.
I know that I have changed immensely within this past year. Since you begin to change in this new environment, it can be hard to be that "new" person in an old environment. You can find yourself falling into old habits. The point of going to college is to prepare you for the job that you will end up doing once you graduate (well that's the goal anyway). College can teach you new ways to prepare yourself for things as well as help bring about new habits. However, returning home is kind of like that popular saying that says, "you can't be fixed in the environment that broke you in the first place."
It can be hard to preserve these new habits in an old environment because they may not work. People are exceptional at falling back into old ways simply because it is easier. As a result, when a college student comes back home, they feel as though they need to become the person they were before they went to college in order to feel comfortable in that environment again.
When in college, you have to learn how to be more independent. This newfound independence can be hard to maintain when returning home because your parents are always wanting to know where you are and no matter how hard the parents may try, they can't help but give their opinion on every decision that you are making. This can make it hard to do anything because they are constantly breathing down your neck. You know that you have to respect them and everything (and that they are most likely doing it out of love), but it can definitely be something that can be quite annoying.
It makes you doubt yourself and the decisions you are making. You start to feel insecure and feel as though you can't make your own choices. Making your own decisions without someone being there to comment on them all the time becomes a very easy thing to come accustom to. So, when you go home and there are people there making you doubt every decision you are making, it can be hard to navigate through that. A part of making your own choices is to learn how to handle the outcomes of those decisions. Sometimes those outcomes will be good, and sometimes they will be bad. But you take those experiences and learn from them.
Just having to deal with people in general when you return home is a struggle. There are always those people that you try to forget. Unfortunately, there are those friends that you want to stay in touch with but maybe you both have changed so much that maybe it just doesn't work anymore. Even deciding to return to a summer job can be a risky choice because at any given moment a past teacher or an ex-boyfriend could walk right in and ask about your life after you spent a few semesters of college trying to forget they even exist.
Overall, there are many strenuous endeavors that come with returning home for the summer. It is important that you just remain true to yourself and power through. You'll be back at college soon, so don't waste your time at home complaining and just try and enjoy it because you may never get these moments again.
