To Oxford Students, who are very homesick - how often do you travel back home?

And what would you consider as a feasible, responsible amount of times to come back home?
Every weekened?
Once a fortnight?
How often is often?

It;s because Il get very very homesick :s

Reply 1

*Corinna*

why only to oxford students? other students don't get homesick? :s-smilie:

Reply 2

Rachhyyyy

im planning on coming home every 2-3 weeks? but we'll see if that changes when i get there.

Reply 3

DaniLou17

im not at Oxford but i moved in last sat saw mum on sunday went home on tuesday for the day came back that evening and then went home on saturday and came back sunday just because i can :smile:

Reply 4

vintage_007

'm not at Oxford but last year I had a rough time so went home every weekend. This year, as I have my own house and my own room, I'm planning on every 2-3 weeks. I get majorly homesick and miss my family and cat a ridiculous amount!

Reply 5

Devolved-Alchemist

correct me if im wrong, but i thought oxford students weren't allowed to leave during term time? :s-smilie:

Reply 6

Stanza

Am at home at the moment. Yes i get homesick and i live at home! Sometimes i have to run home from school - crying!

Reply 7

Festina lente

It depends on how near your home is. Because the term is so short and the workload so intense, it is very unusual for students to go home every weekend (particularly if you have tutorials on Saturdays - it happens at some Colleges for some subjects). It is quite common for students to go home for the weekend in the middle of term, if they live reasonably near.

I do think that as a general rule, being in Oxford for whole weeks helps you to feel more settled, make more friends and therefore get over the homesickness better.

(edited 14 years ago)

Reply 8

The_Lonely_Goatherd

Devolved-Alchemist

correct me if im wrong, but i thought oxford students weren't allowed to leave during term time? :s-smilie:

That's one of these silly urban myths :biggrin:

Being a Londoner and having to go to London anyway for piano lessons the first two years, I tended to go home once every 2-3 weeks. It really depends on your course and how far away home is, as well as your general ability to time manage (mine is **** :biggrin:

)

Reply 9

tabbycat1

I felt homesick at the beginning of my first term and I found that the best thing was to not visit home at all and only speak on the phone about once a week. In my experience, constant contact just made me feel worse and within a couple of weeks Oxford felt like a second home anyway. During my whole of first year during term time, I only went back once and that was when I was ill. A term's only 8 weeks remember. If you do need to visit though, it depends how close you live, as to how often you could go back. If it's just London then every couple of weeks is ok.

To Xristina, I think they said Oxford students in particular because you really don't have much free time, so they wanted to know how viable it is.

Reply 10

TuskSE

I think technically there's only a certain amount of nights you're `allowed` to spend per term outside of Oxford. (`Oxford` being within 3 miles of carfax tower, iirc.) But in reality, I find it highly unlikley this would be enforced, unless maybe you were failing academically. I mean, generally, how would college/university even know you were gone?

I don't know how much is reasonable or a good idea, but I think it is *feasable* to go home pretty much every week.

I have a fiancé who works full time near Crewe, and lives with her sister. Usually she comes to visit me at the weekend, but for a lot of last year she had medical problems meaning that she was off work and not really up to travelling down on the train all that often. So for atleast one term or so I went to see her almost* every weekend. The train journey usually takes a little 3 hours, with 30+mins either end for getting to/from the station. Id usually go lateish on the Friday/Saturday, stay the night, and come back Saturday/Sunday middayish. I also did a fair bit of music stuff, and in my exams got a strong 1st, coming I think 18/167 in the year. And Im not a late-night worker, im usually in bed by 11. My point being that it IS quite possible to visit home almost* every week without failing academically.

*BUT you need to be flexible. You can't be reliant on that trip hope every week. My personal experience is that Ill only know how much work I have over the weekend on Thursday or Friday. And the amount of work can very drastically from week to week. Some weeks (maybe 2 in 8) I just had too much work to go, and I had to accept that and get on with it. And some weeks I could afford to spend more time than I could other weeks. Its not something you can plan in advance.
It's also going to depend on your timetable. Some people have Saturday tutes. And if you have labs until 5.30pm on a Friday, you might not want to then go on to a 4 hour journey.

Also, obviously, whether this is feasable depends on a lot of things: how far away home is, how quickly you work, how well you're doing academically, whether you can get any useful work done on the train, whether you find travelling tiring, etc.

And also, you have to give up extra-curriculars. If I wasnt spending time with my fiance at weekends, Id be playing in a ton of university bands and stuff. However, if I can't garuntee being always free on Friday nights, Saturdays and Sundays (or whenever rehersals and gigs are), I can't join. Obviously a lot of extracurriculars take place at weekends, and take up a lot of time. Luckily Im part of a more imformal band within college now, so I can just organise rehersals etc around when I know I can try and be free, and when I haven't got much work.

In my experience, other students tend to go home only 1nce or maybe 2ce a term.

Also, I don't think its healthy to be realiant on trips home. Because you don't want it to be upsetting when you have a week with too much work for you to go. When I visit my Fiance, it's kind of for her. If I *needed* to do it for *me* every week, I don't think that would be at all healthy. If youre just visiting parents etc for your own sake, id advise doing it as little as possible. At least at first, until you get used to the fact that its a luxury.

(On the other hand, I know atleast one person who really benefitted from dropping work and going home for a couple of days to recouperate, and to calm down a bit. If you feel you need to go, do. Just don't make a habbit of it.)

Reply 11

Mook

NurahFisa

It;s because Il get very very homesick :s

I know one person who goes home most weekends but she is very much an exception and lives within 30 minutes of Oxford. I get the impression that it's a mixture of religion and culture, though - not really homesickness. The general trend from my experience tends to be that parents/siblings come to visit Oxford once or twice a term, rather than people going home.

I think if you're worrying about being homesick now then you're just going to focus on it. Try and throw yourself into all the exciting things that will be going on in Oxford and it might take your mind off it. I normally only speak to my parents once a week on the phone, even though we're close, because I find it easier that way.