How to Make School Feel Like Home

By Grace DeBoer

Leaving home is a huge change for anyone, and as an anxious person, I know it can be truly panic-inducing. However, moving to college and starting a new chapter in your life can be made less stressful if you use the tips and strategies outlined below for creating your own home away from home. I curated this list of 5 tips through interviews with my friends. These strategies worked for us and you can put them into practice too.

1. Bring the Flavors of Home with You

Some of the things I missed most from home where the comforts of a home-cooked meal and having my favorite snacks on hand in the pantry at all times. One of my absolute favorite dishes is spicy ramen noodles and it is one of the dishes that I used to share with my siblings around the kitchen table, daring each other to add more spicy heat until we surrendered to a winner. Making recipes from home, ranging from the ramen noodles to my brother’s shrimp scampi or my sister’s tacos has been a tasty way to keep connected to home.

My favorite ramen, taco night with my roommates and my brother's shrimp scampi recipe.

2. Display Your Memories

My friend Fabi grew up near campus, so for her, being away from home is a different experience. She tells me that it’s important to “make the space feel like home,” so she’ll “take items from her house, like stuffed animals, plants and especially pictures” to make her room complete. Having photos, ticket stubs and postcards allow memories to be physically represented in front of you, which can be a real pick-me-up during moments of homesickness.

Fabi's stuffed animals, a photo of my boyfriend and me as well as some tickets from a fair I attended at home on my wall and my stuffed animals and trinkets in my room at school.

3. Try Something New

My roommate Caroline explains that what she really likes about school is that “it’s not actually like home, it’s like a second home.” She expresses that she doesn’t feel the need to “replicate home, but make it into another kind of safe space.” She enjoys that having these two homes breaks up her year’s timeline, where there is “home as in family and home as in independence.” She takes the opportunity to try new colors and artwork in her campus home that she doesn’t display at her house.

4. Get Cozy

Like me, my roommate Ava grew up in a beach town and now is living at a land-locked campus where she misses the salty air and comforts of home. Ava explains that she makes school feel like home by creating a “new space to feel comfortable in, by making it cozy and safe.” Adding oversized pillows and comfy blankets help create a feeling of warmth like a hug from home.

How Ava has made her room cozier.

5. Honor Your Heritage

My friend Monisha makes school feel like home by displaying some reminders of her Indian heritage. When she decorates her home away from home, she “brings small trinkets that connect to my Indian culture, such as small statues of gods, or just reminders of home.” By surrounding herself with these items, she displays a part of herself that others may not know. She also finds comfort in bringing “little Indian snacks, recipes or spices because it’s nice to have those reminders of home.”

Ganesh, one of the Indian Gods Monisha has a statue of and Maggi, one of her favorite snacks she shares with us.

Each of us has found ways to make school a little cozier. Whether it's snacks, pictures, mementos, trinkets or recipes to share with each other, these elements have helped us adapt to a new home. When you find what makes school homier, embrace it! Your home away from home should be special and a safe place just for you.