<p>DD will not be coming home for Thanksgiving any advice on how students handle holidays on campus without any family to be with.</p>
<p>First thought I would have is the student finding a friend to go home with for the holiday. I think holidays on the campus are tough - not every campus even keeps dorms/food service open over this holiday.</p>
<p>Can you shed more light? Is this a rising Freshman? How far from extended family/family friends is the campus?</p>
<p>Students usually go home with friends who live nearby. If they stay on campus, they hang out with other students who are staying over. Sometimes colleges will have special Thanksgiving meals for students who have to stay.</p>
<p>S won’t be flying home for Thanksgiving or Easter breaks–I asked a current student and an admissions director about this–they assured me that the campus is open, many out-of-state/international students stay during these breaks. Local students/faculty invite them to dinner, no one is left alone. Check with the college–it seems something will be going on at most colleges because many students cannot afford to fly home for Thanksgiving and then again for Christmas a few weeks later. (Tell her to make friends with local students. . .)</p>
<p>She is moving over 1600 miles from home from Texas Gulf Coast to Newark NJ so it is a long way up there. She has high hopes of befriending NJ kids so we are hoping that they invite her to Thanksgiving Diner. thanks for all the help</p>
<p>Flunderingfree, it will all work out, you’ll see. Mine couldn’t come home for Easter or spring break owing to team practices, and at first I was appalled at the thought of not having our holiday traditions - just couldn’t imagine it - but, it has worked out o.k. The kids seem to find more than enough options - too many, in fact, and the parents thrive too - gives you more to celebrate when they are able to make it home.</p>
<p>Eons ago, my H was invited by his college roommate to go home with him for Thanksgiving, in NJ. We are still good friends. So last year, we invited S’s suitemate and girlfriend for Thanksgiving. It will work out.</p>
<p>Also eons ago, an east coast student at Caltech told his mother back home in NJ that he’d fixed himself some Rice-a-Roni for his Thanksgiving Dinner.</p>
<p>(I get the impression that Southern California families get less sentimental about Thanksgiving than East Coast families, so lots of his friends were staying on campus and just “fending for themselves” since campus dining halls were closed.)</p>
<p>She, of course, was quite distressed. So every year after that she sent him some money earmarked so that he could take his girlfriend out to Thanksgiving dinner at a nice Pasadena restaurant.</p>
<p>My kids haven’t been able to come home for short breaks either. One year one of my sons helped cook and serve the Thanksgiving dinner in the school cafeteria - most of the students who stayed were International. One year, the S in Philly gathered together a group of friends and met up with the S in NYC, where they had made dinner reservations at a local restaurant. Last year, one went to relatives who lived nearby. The other went to a friend’s house. He could have also travelled to the relatives, but he actually wanted the long weekend without disturbances to catch up on assignments.</p>
<p>Something will work out. As a mom, though, I always hope that whatever they work out isn’t <em>quite</em> as good as coming home would have been. ;)</p>
<p>The year that I stayed on campus for Thanksgiving, I attended a dinner at the apartment of a young alum friend with a combination of other undergrads who were on campus and other young alums. It was very nice. Both my dorm and the advisor for my coed service fraternity also held Thanksgiving dinners.</p>
<p>the same way they handle them when they are there… there are always on people to be with… because there are always people who don’t go home. most times those people will get together and do dinner or something like that.</p>
<p>Your student should take the initiative and simply let dormmates know that he/she would like to be adopted over Thanksgiving break. Place a note on the dorm bulletin board or something.</p>
<p>Sitting alone in one’s room can be emotionally traumatic. (yes, I know from experience) Thinking back, there were three local families who would have welcomed me into their home with open arms, but I was just too shy to ask. They are the kind who would have been offended that I DIDN’T let them know.</p>
<p>Another option is to find a church or local org that serves meals that day and volunteer your time.</p>
<p>I do know that Stanford Medical Center opens its cafeteria to the public on Thanksgiving Day. Free meals, eat in or take out, you don’t have to be homeless or anything like that, and the food has a rep for being very good. They may do it in part to service the Stanford students and staff who can’t go home for the holiday.</p>
<p>This may sound overly obvious, but your student should double-check with the campus housing department to make sure that the dorms stay open over Thanksgiving. At some schools, they do not. My son is at UMCP, and I was surprised to learn that all of the dorms on one side of the campus (the side where he lived for two years) close during Thanksgiving and Spring Break. Everyone who lives there MUST leave. (Of course, there’s nothing to prevent them from checking in to a local motel.)</p>
<p>flounderingfree, it’s really easy to get from Newark to New York City by mass transit, as you probably know. Your daughter and any other kids who are not going home might want to go into the city on Thanksgiving Day to see the Macy’s parade. Instead of being left out of something (Thanksgiving dinner at home), the kids would be doing something cool that most people never get to do.</p>