Freshman Blues

By Amy Dickinson

Don't tell my kid, but sometimes I sneak into her room to do a little mental redecorating in anticipation of the day when she goes off to college. (That's several years in the future, but the way I see it, it's never too early to measure for draperies.) Like lots of parents, I assume that my kid's childhood will neatly end at the campus gates, at which time I will join the Peace Corps, take swing-dancing lessons and never again utter the words "Why? Because I said so!" But the transition from childhood to college is seldom smooth for parents or their offspring, who face life for the first time without curfews, vegetables or clean laundry--and with plenty of social and academic pressure.

Bob and Sue Harvey spent nine years as resident fellows in a dorm at Stanford and lived to tell about it in their book Virtual Reality and the College Freshman. "The freshman student often faces an identity crisis during the first semester," they write. "Kids know who they are in their senior year of high school, but a freshman has to reach out and start from scratch." College is a more pressured environment than it used to be, in part because the academic gap between high school and college has increased. Many college freshmen have never had to make independent decisions about sex, drugs and alcohol. Most don't know how to manage their time or money. They often feel lonely and overwhelmed, resulting in exhaustion, anxiety and depression.

Nancy Corbin, director of clinical services for student-counseling services at Iowa State University, says her office is seeing a significant increase in requests for counseling from freshmen who are having trouble making the adjustment to college life. Despite all their technical sophistication, she says, older teenagers increasingly lack the skills to deal with personal problems that aren't easily defined or fixed. "They have 'point-and-click' expectations," she says. And they get homesick but have a hard time admitting it.

Parents and high schools can make things easier on freshmen by preparing them differently: for example, by teaching them to budget their hours and their dollars. The Harveys think high schools should offer a college-life course to college-bound seniors. Parents need to "focus more on relationship and personal issues and less on how many sheets and towels to take," they say. Many homesick freshmen think they'll be regarded as failures if they come home before Thanksgiving, so parents can help by letting them know they're welcome to return if they feel the need. In the meantime, parents have to find new ways to keep in touch with their college kids. One of the best is e-mail. It's less intrusive--and less expensive--than constant phone calls and is more likely to be answered than a handwritten letter.

Brandon Hart, a homesick freshman at Iowa State, has started e-mailing back and forth with his tech-novice mother, who says, "Brandon's being at college has left a huge hole in our lives." She couldn't bear to look at his empty bedroom, so she rearranged it and put the computer there. She sends old-fashioned "care packages," with baked goodies, novelty toys and notes from home. "The other guys get jealous when I bring another package in," Brandon said. "It's funny how exciting the mail gets when you get to college." See our Website at time.com/personal for more on the transition to college life. You can e-mail Amy at Timefamily@aol.com