<p>My freshman year my roommate and I were both from the same city 20 minutes away. I tried not to go home that much. Usually, my parents would come out to take me to dinner maybe one or two times a month. It was nice because I got to see them regularly but it wasn’t a big commitment in my day and I never left the area so it didn’t exactly feel like I was leaving campus.</p>
<p>My roommate however went home EVERY WEEKEND. At first, it was the whole weekend, 3/4 weekends in the month, for about two or three months. Then finally she realized she wasn’t involved in campus life that much. We go to a school of about 3,000 tops, so people know people through gossip. I had a very good number of acquaintances and I knew all the “news” around campus. Whenever I’d mention to her something like that, I had to explain the whole thing and even look the people up on Facebook because she just didn’t know.</p>
<p>I guess my point is that you can do well in school and earn your degree either way, but you’ll be missing out on the social part of the experience which is huge. She also revealed to me later that she didn’t feel as “grown-up” as she wished because she still spent every Sunday with her family and her mom did her laundry and brought it to school every week for her.</p>
<p>If your parents want you to come home all the time, I wouldn’t fight it too hard but maybe try to make compromises. Instead of going home to them on the weekend, maybe have them come to you once in a while for a Wednesday night dinner or something. If you are going home during the weekend, try to still have one fun night - like fun Thursday/Friday night and then home Saturday to Sunday. That way you’re still social on the weekend but your parents get to see you and know that you’re not avoiding them because you want to party.</p>