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Seventy percent of first-year students feel homesick.

The timing and form of homesickness vary widely and include physical, emotional, and cognitive aspects.

Practical steps—like naming the feeling and building routines—can help homesickness pass.

In my 20 years as a college mental health counselor, I had many student clients who started their college career in crisis. They had a particularly tough time leaving the comfort and warmth of their families. College seemed like a place of fear and impossibility.

That’s the bad news. The good news is that all of these students ended up developing coping skills for tough times, finding new people that they could hang out with and trust, and in general succeeding in school and life in ways they could not foresee during their first weeks at school.

However we want to label this—homesickness, adjustment disorder, social anxiety—leaving for college is a major transition. While most would agree it is widespread in the first few months of college, I saw this arise for students at all times during their college career. It could be a delayed reaction for second-years, loss of close........

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