CultusCombating loneliness in first-year students
Loneliness is a horrible feeling. Ironically, you are never alone in feeling lonely. It is the first friend that students make when they start university. Combating loneliness can be difficult for first-year students with the pressure of having the “best time of their lives”.
Students are often afraid of being alone, which leads them to be around the wrong people who make them feel more lonely, because sometimes, being a part of a group that doesn’t understand you or value your opinion can make you feel lonelier than being alone. What should you do in such situations? Let’s find out together!
Story of Freya Selman
Freya, a fourth-year student at the University of Bristol. She was studying Social Work MSc when she shared her journey of combating loneliness. She mentioned, as a student of social work, she understands how common it is for students to feel lonely, and that every student has felt it at some point.
She discussed how her first year went by, trying desperately to make friends, which even led her into bad company and worsened her loneliness. Her whole day would go by feeling homesick, due to which she wasn’t able to pay attention to her studies and assignments. However, the first two years kept going on like this until she started to value self-care.
When she got tired of feeling lonely, the first thing she did was start dog sitting for other people, to have a cute and fluffy companion to heal her loneliness. Apart from that, she sought out help through assignment writing services UK to get quick assistance to complete her piling assignments. She joined a sports society and also started journaling.
Story of Morgan Miller
Everybody leads a different life, and Morgan Miller also felt alone, but in a very different way. Morgan started her studies soon after the COVID pandemic in 2021. She went to the University of Manchester full of hope, excitement and a sense of independence.
Soon, all the excitement turned into a feeling of isolation when she felt forced to make new friends just after a long pandemic. She didn’t get along with her flatmates, but met some very “cool” people in university and befriended them. After the second semester of their first year, their whole group started to live together.
It was then that she learned: being friends with someone and starting to live with them were two different things. After a few months, when she was developing in her student life, all of her friends dropped out, and she felt like she was “sticking out like a sore thumb”. She felt isolated among those friends to whom she used to say, “Write my assignment for me,” now they felt like strangers.
Story of Naura
Naura was an international student from Indonesia. She shared her story during her third year at the University of Exeter. She explained how excited she was when she first came to university and took part in the Rifle club during Welcome Week. But the excitement started to fade out when the Welcome Week came to an end, and everyone got busy.
She mentioned that her studies of psychology gave her very limited time to socialise, which didn’t allow her communication to go beyond acquaintances into friendships. She remembered being isolated and homesick, which took a toll on her by the end of the second year, which affected her exams badly as well.
However, as she mentioned, “After a few weeks of moping in my bed, I knew I needed to start fighting loneliness.” She then prepared for exams by seeking online exam help and joined an Indonesian society on her tutor’s advice, which required her to attend regular meetings, help in arranging events, and participate in events like the Southeast Asia Gala.
Factors of loneliness
The same thing in all three mentioned stories was the feeling of loneliness and isolation. But why did they all feel it when they were so excited to attend the university? The common factors for all the students who experience feelings of loneliness are:
- Homesickness: Being away from the familiar support system.
- Struggle with Making Friends: Feeling like “I’m too weird to be friends with” or “I don’t exactly fit in”.
- Social Pressure: The longing to make the experience of student life worthwhile, like all the other students.
- Academic Pressure: Having no one who understands the struggles of academic stress.
- Cultural and Language Differences: Having no one with familiar cultural or personal values can cause a sense of loneliness.
- Identity and Self-Discovery: When you don’t know what you like and what you want from your friends, finding the wrong people can worsen the feeling of isolation.
- Too Much Freedom, Too Soon: Being independent comes with a lot of challenges, which many students take lightly and are often not ready for.
- Fear of Rejection: The hesitation of not being selected as part of the group led students to avoid joining clubs and societies.
Strategies for fighting loneliness
The solution to the loneliness that universities provide is found within the universities. Even in the stories mentioned above, you can point out that they fought against their isolation through the university resources, which include:
- University-Led Initiatives: Welcome Week, peer mentoring programmes, student support services, student clubs and societies, all of these are called university-led initiatives.
- Students’ Accommodations: A shared room or accommodation full of similarly aged students can produce a sense of belonging and support.
- Digital and Online Platforms: Online services like assignment and dissertation writing services UK help students when they feel embarrassed to ask for help from someone else.
A moral of the story
Loneliness is not a pleasant experience at all. It makes you feel isolated and unwanted. But universities are well aware of how their students can feel at times, especially during the first year. Loneliness is a silent challenge that first-year students face.
By creating peer-supported communities and involvement in cultural events, universities are providing multiple strategies for combating loneliness by making students feel welcomed, seen, heard, and valued.
Author: Ronald Wok
