Category Archives: First Year Focus

Preparing for Finals

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Thanksgiving break is quickly approaching, which means your student may be headed home for the long weekend. Students will likely be tired, so you may notice a decrease in energy from earlier in the semester. They may be feeling frustrated about class registration, end of semester projects, and final exams. Whether you will see them in person for the Thanksgiving break or not, now is the perfect time to help pump them up and give them the familial support they need to finish the semester strong. Below are a few tips to help navigate the remaining weeks of this semester:

Encourage

Once your student returns from Thanksgiving break, they will only have one week until finals. Let them know that you’re proud of the growth and progress they have made so far in the semester. Support them in continuing to work hard–they can do this! Encourage them to build effective stress relief time into their schedule. (If you haven’t already, check out the Health and Counseling Center’s tips for self-care.)

Send Some Love

Our “Survival Kit” sale might be over, but we still encourage you to send some love of your own! Whether you craft your own letter, assemble a care package, or take advantage of one of our on-campus services, your student will appreciate the gesture. An encouraging text, email, or mailed letter from a loved one might provide the boost they need to power through that final project or late-night study session.

Hold Off on the Holidays

While you may have the urge to update your student on the holiday traditions you’re observing back home (and how much you wish they were there to join you), we encourage you to refrain from focusing on this as a conversation topic until they’re home for the semester break. Hearing about the fun that everyone is having without them may increase levels of homesickness or distract them from the hard tasks in front of them. Allow them to get through the stress of finals before diving into the “holiday cheer” mode.

Connect to Resources

It never hurts to remind your student about the resources available to them on campus, including the services offered through the Learning Commons in Buckley Center 163. The Learning Commons can help students learn how to study more effectively, prepare for exams, practice language skills, receive math and writing tutoring, or improve memory strategies. Please encourage your students to visit http://www.up.edu/sarc to learn how to set up appointments or call 503-943-8002 to get any questions answered.

Other Finals Week Resources:

How Parents Can Support Students who are Struggling with Homesickness

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If your first-year student is feeling homesick, know that they are not alone. According to a large survey of college students, approximately 66% of new and transfer students have experienced homesickness or loneliness. Homesickness is common and typically passes in a short time. Yet as parents, it may be hard to hear that your student is struggling. It may be tempting to visit or have your child come home for the weekend.

This is the moment where it is important to understand what homesickness is really about. Feeling sad and lonely doesn’t necessarily mean that your child is in the wrong place, but that the student is adjusting to this transition. Parents can support students as they cope with this change. The key is for parents to help students learn how to move through this discomfort rather than try to take it away. Students need to learn how to tolerate uncomfortable feelings and work on ways to feel more connected with their college community emotionally, socially, and intellectually.

So much of parenting is listening with compassion and really striving to understand our children. If we try to protect them from their struggles, they will miss an important opportunity to learn from their experiences and build confidence in solving their own problems.

The following are other ways parents can help their students cope with feeling homesick and lonely during the college years. These guidelines were developed by Dr. Carol Dell’Oliver, Director, and Dr. Paris Schaefer, Staff Psychologist, at UP’s Health and Counseling Center.

Encourage students to reach out to others.

  • This can include talking with or calling/texting their close friends, supportive family members, their RAs, advisors, or teachers who can offer reassurance.

Find a balance maintaining contact with the family.

  • Have something planned on the calendar that you and your student can look forward to each semester.
  • Don’t encourage too many trips home. Students need to build new connections and establish college as their home away from home.

Be a supportive listener, but try not to give advice.

  • Be there for them and provide a sympathetic ear. Allow students to express difficult emotions and identify how to cope with them. Be patient with their ups and downs.
  • Remember that with struggle comes growth!

Encourage self-care.

  • Ask what your student typically does to find comfort or deal with stress. It might be listening to music, going for a run, watching a movie, or doing something creative.

Send a little love the old-fashioned way.

  • Prepare a care package of your student’s favorite things.
  • Write positive messages of encouragement during stressful times or after an important accomplishment.

Looking for more resources? Here are some tips for students dealing with loneliness and homesickness.

First Year Focus: Roommate Living

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Roommate living can be one of the biggest adjustments for a new student. Drawing upon many years of professional and personal experience, Tyler Hale, Associate Director of Community Standards for Residence Life at UP, shares how parents can help their students navigate the world of community living. Read his heartfelt article below.

Confession: I never had to share a bedroom until I went to college. Even though my freshman year was 14 years ago I remember fearfully wondering if my outrageously loud snoring would make my roommate hate me! I am happy to report that it didn’t. Or rather, it mostly didn’t. Sure, we had our frustrations and arguments and a brief but memorable passive-aggressive note-leaving phase, but getting the opportunity to go back and skip all of those awkward roommate conversations in order to have my own room would have meant that I would never have gotten to know Matt. We both had older sisters; we both snored (although I was louder); he rode dirt bikes, I rode a road bike (wearing the awkward but obligatory spandex shorts!); he studied business and I did theology; I had a Britney Spears calendar, he…did not.

I have spent most of my professional career working in residence halls and helping students navigate the awkward moments that inevitably happen when two or more humans begin to share space together. I have seen everything from differences in sleep schedules to irreconcilable differences in values. In almost all cases, the roommates learn a little about themselves and a lot about living with another person. I imagine it must be extremely hard to watch your students navigate the tough waters of living with roommates; I also know that some roommate situations can’t be solved with a Breathe Right strip and nasal spray.

If you will indulge me, I’d like to share two things:

1) We know how hard it can be to watch from the sidelines. In an era of Snapchat and texting, parents are sometimes aware of a roommate problem even before the offending student is! Standing back and giving your student that space to discover their own solutions can be really hard. Thankfully, they don’t have to do it alone. Encourage them to talk with their RA or, better yet, talk with their roommate! When you give them the space to “own their own solution” you are supporting them!

2) For students, and for those watching from the sidelines, the elusive single bedroom can feel like the Holy Grail of housing possibilities: impossible to find, but life-saving if acquired. For years, we have had anecdotal and quantitative evidence that points to just the opposite. Roommates, and the good, bad, and ugly that comes with them, are one of the best catalysts for your student’s learning, retention, and growth! Encourage them to “press in” and have the tough conversations rather than seeking a new room assignment. October is the end of the “honeymoon” phase of living with a roommate; people let their guards down, and it gets harder to ignore that thing that has bothered you since day one. We need your help telling your student that this is a normal part of living with another person. Talking about your problems is a good and mature part of growing up, and their RAs are there to help them have those conversations!

Encourage your student to talk to their roommate about frustrations and annoyances. Even more importantly, encourage them to listen to their roommate when they share about their frustrations and annoyances. Students can sometimes feel robbed of an experience if they don’t get to tell the magical story of how their freshman roommate was the Best Man in their wedding, but those are the outliers. Living with Matt, my freshman roommate, was a generally good experience, but we weren’t best friends. Encourage your student to have realistic expectations about their roommate and cheer them on when they choose to engage them in conversation. My current roommate and I have been married for over ten years, and although I don’t always get it right, I think living with Matt helped me grow into the kind of person that is quick to apologize and who is comfortable being honest with her about the things that frustrate me. Engaging in a conversation isn’t always easy, but we think that is what living in community is all about!

Tyler Hale currently serves as Associate Director of Community Standards for Residence Life at UP. Tyler holds a bachelor’s degree from George Fox University in religious studies and a master’s degree in religion from Yale University in New Haven, CT. Prior to his employment at the University of Portland, Tyler served as a student life fellow, providing spiritual and multi-religious programming for graduate students at Yale University.