<p>Our daughter has been at her university for a grand total of four days now.</p>
<p>I asked someone today how long it took her sons to settle in to college – she said about a year.</p>
<p>What is your experience? How long does it take to establish a circle of friends and feel comfortable at college?</p>
<p>I think this varies so much from kid to kid and their personalities and background and so on. I realize it is normal for some kids to take a year (there are many who claim they want to transfer in fall of freshmen year!). </p>
<p>For my own two kids, I think they felt comfortable and settled in early fall of freshman year. They loved it from the get go and seemed to adjust immediately. They had been away from home before for numerous summers (can’t claim that is a factor but may have been). My kids are not the homesick type either.</p>
<p>My D went to school very far from home, and she didn’t know a soul. Her roommate was not a good “fit.” It was rough for the first couple months. I posted at Christmas that year, sharing her hissy fit when she didn’t want to go back after the holidays. By spring, though, she had a wonderful group to call her own. She decided to transfer for academic reasons, and she was sad to leave her friends behind.</p>
<p>This year, she was at a new school. Again, it was far from home. This time, she roomed with a friend from her former school who also transferred. She made friends, but she didn’t find a close group the way she did at the other school. She finished the year feeling like she hadn’t quite ever settled in. She wasn’t upset, though … she hopes to be able to meet more people in her classes after she returns in January (she is studying abroad fall semester). She is comfortable even without the kind of circle of friends she had before.</p>
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<p>For DS #1 and 2, a matter of days. For their mom, still working on it (and the eldest has graduated!) Agree with soozie that it depends entirely on your kid’s disposition. Some people adjust to change more readily than others; some are more tolerant of others’ noise levels and habits. Some are more outgoing while others are more reserved. So hard to generalize. Just be sure to send great care packages this year with enough goodies for friends on her floor. It’ll endear her to them.</p>
<p>When D1 was a freshman she said to me, “The toughest thing to get used to is there are people around me all the time, when I walk to classes, when I eat, even in the bathroom. Another thing is I am in charge of everything. There is no one to remind me to call a doctor, see my advisor, get a ride home…”</p>
<p>It just never occurred to me that it would be a huge adjustment for her to not have any quiet time even though she had a single. Most of our kids when they lived at home they could go to their rooms and just shut out the world for a little while. D1 was a very social person, and she felt she had to be peppy all the time (she didn’t want people to see her being unhappy or worried). There was no down time for her. When she lived at home, we would remind her to do various things, but in college there was no safety net for her. </p>
<p>It took a few months for her to adjust. Now, she wasn’t unhappy at all during thse few months, but there were just moments when she wished everyone could just disappear for a little while.</p>
<p>It took our younger D (now a rising junior) probably the entire first semester. She had never really been away from home any distance or length of time before going to college. Her roommate was also not a good “fit”. D’s school is 350 miles away - DH and I made the 700 mile round trip @ every two weeks the first semester to try to alleviate her homesickness. Of course, there were “reasons” to go other than her homesickness - family weekend, concerts, her birthday, etc. By second semester, she was good to go!! I had a parent tell me they wouldn’t have made the trips - they would have told her that she had to go to school closer to home. Had to tell them that the way we parent isn’t doing what’s easiest for us, but what’s best for the child. It wore us slick, but was worth every trip to help her adjust to a school she now loves! This child has also now spent a summer in a program half way across the country, lived and worked in a foreign country with people she’d never met, etc. Adjusted just fine!</p>
<p>Older D went to our StateU @ 75 miles away. We told her that she needed to stay for the first two weeks before coming home. I will never forget watching her drive up the driveway for that first visit home with tears just steaming down her face. From that day on I told her to come home whenever she wanted. The visits were frequent the first semester, but happened less and less as the year ran on. This D just moved across with country to start graduate school!</p>
<p>Freshman year is a huge adjustment for many. Living with strangers, unfamiliar bed, different food, classes much more difficult than high school, etc. Everything is different.
I marvel at how quickly they DO adjust!</p>
<p>Two years.</p>
<p>Over two years. And two schools.</p>
<p>Thanks for the replies – MidwestParent, especially yours about your daughter’s first trip home!</p>
<p>The biggest challenge is recreating the circle of friends, I think.</p>
<p>As everyone said so varied. DS took about one day. His freshman roommate’s parents are still crediting him with their kid having a good freshman year. The first weekend he called me and he was making breakfast for 12 people. Sheesh. I wish I could be more like him in that way.
DD is being dropped off today. I think it will be harder for her. The part about never being alone is huge and I think bigger for girls. This DD has been an only for the past three years. She has spent a lot of time with the whole house to herself (we are out a lot) and she likes it that way.
Over email and fb her roomie seems to be a good fit. I’m praying she is IRL.</p>
<p>DS took about a day but he knew some of the faculty and students in his program when he enrolled.</p>
<p>DD took about a year. Her freshman year was loaded with a strange roommate situation (first roommate moved to a different dorm…second roommate was only there to study and went home every Friday returning on Monday and that was odd). DD didn’t know anyone and was very far from home. She started to gain a stride during the second half of her freshman year, and really became involved in the school and some activities during her sophomore year.</p>
<p>I thought it took about two weeks to settle in adequately (enough to be happy and comfortable) into the social environment, and maybe a semester and a half to settle in really well (feeling like I was truly coming into my identity within the social environment). The academic side was up and down throughout the four years (and the first semester, with the exception of one class, was not actually a problem).</p>
<p>Less than a day for my S1. In fact I spent the final day of our “move-in” trip (cross country) alone in my hotel room and alone for my restaurant meals.</p>
<p>But like ebeeeee’s D, my S2 is used to being an only and is a little less “out there” in terms of sociability. He’s been away from home on his own plenty of times, and has a close circle of hs friends, but I anticipate that he will need a little longer to adjust. So far, none of this seems to be influencing his college list as almost all potential colleges are a far distance away and not popular with his hs set.</p>