A STUDY ON HOMESICKNESS - Based on a survey among the students of IIT Patna

Team members:  Sreenivasu K, Vidyadutt K, Udhaya Shankar J.S, Balakumaran N 

1.Introduction

Although the meaning of homesickness is trivial, it has a deeper meaning on a closer look.

It not just refers to distress or impairment caused by an actual or anticipated separation from home but also to the anxious and a consequently withdrawal behavior as a result of preoccupying thoughts of home and attachment objects.  It leads to difficulty on focusing on topics unrelated to home. It may refer to a state of unhappiness when things are different to one’s expectations. Sufferers of such a psychological phenomenon feel they have no control over their environment. However it should be understood that such a phenomenon is a universal experience. It can affect anyone living away from home temporarily or permanently irrespective of one’s gender, nationality and personality type.

Previous researches have categorized Homesickness into two forms based on the intensity of symptoms.

They are namely, Traditional Homesickness and Intense Homesickness.

Traditional Homesickness:

• ·      Less intense, comes quite often and eventually drifts away after a few weeks.
• ·         Sufferers find it distressing, however their social and academic functions are not disturbed. 

Intense Homesickness:

• ·          Persists continuously even after months
• ·         Sufferers are disturbed continuously thereby hampering social and academic functions.

It is also important to understand the following findings of the previously done researches.

• ·         35 percent of beginning university students experience homesickness
• ·         For every 7 students who suffer from traditional homesickness, there might be 1 student who suffers from severe homesickness
• ·         Between 5 and 15 percent of beginning students suffer from this in a more severe form.

 2. Survey Methodology :

The objective of the survey is to study different aspects associated with homesickness among the students of IIT Patna right from the age of first homesick experience to the individual personality types of the sufferers.

Keeping the above objective in mind, a survey form in Google-docs has been prepared as it proves to be an efficient and a tech-savvy method of data collection. The survey form intends to extract the following details from a person filling it.

•     Gender
•    Time of first hostel experience
•    Levels of first homesick experience after certain time intervals
•   Personal  issues

-          The person(s) at home the sufferers missed the most

-          Whether the sufferers had previous relationships.(before joining hostels)

-          Attempts made to combat the initial setback

A.      Overall experience

-          Their feelings to be rated on a 5 point scale

-          Whether they would recommend such experience to others

B.      Personality type

-          Whether the person is an introvert, extrovert, ambivert or reserved

In the survey, it is assumed that the participants have enough knowledge of their own personality types.

This eliminated the need to conduct separate tests so as to find out each and everyone’s personality types which otherwise would have made the procedure a bit complex.

The survey is not aimed to collect obvious data but to infer various connections between the aspects associated to homesickness. For example, gender of the participant is related to the gender of the person whom they missed during the homesick experience. This follows that boys missed their mothers and girls missed their fathers.  Many such inferences are listed in the following sections.

On the whole, 202 participants took part in the survey, out of which, 93.5% were males and 6.5% were females. This ratio ensures that the collection of samples represent the entire scenario of IIT Patna in a nutshell.

3. Findings

3.1 First homesick experience:

          63.2% of participants reported that the first homesick experience in their life was after joining IIT Patna. The next junk of participants, 25.4 % had such experience during their high school – Standard X to Standard XII. A few of them, 8.5 %, are forerunners in having such experience as they faced it in a relatively young age during mid-school of standard V – standard X.

The intervals of suffering from homesickness are fixed to be as follows.

1.    Initial few days of sickness
2. Feeling sick after a month
3.  Feeling sick even after spending six months in the hostel

It can be inferred that only 26 participants missed their homes throughout as they reported persistence in being sick. It is interesting to note that people miss home even after spending 6 months at hostels just as they miss during the initial days.  

The majority of the participants can now be easily categorized.

A.      People who missed initially but not later

B.      People who initially did not miss but terribly missed later

Category A reports 92 people and category B reports 91 people. Both the categories have almost equal share.

3.2 Attempts to cope up with homesickness:

 Many students who had first homesick experience after joining college had access to home through phones as 92.5 % said they had permission to make calls.

Thanks to the advancement of tel-communications, 41 %  of the participants reported that they call home frequently to cope up with homesickness. The scenario would have been entirely different had the restriction been imposed on allowing mobile phones in hostels.  However it is also interesting to note that 12.5 % of people were very determined before joining hostels. They reported, ”Chuck home! I came here to study.” 4 % said they maintained diary to jot down their feelings or they used to express their feeling of longing by creative means such as painting, writing poetry etc.

Only 2 % of people wrote letters / e –mails to cope up with homesickness. The remaining 22.5 % carried out other ways of coping up.

It is interesting to relate the attempts to cope up with homesickness to the age group during which the sufferers had first experience. People who had first experience during standard X- standard XII are the most determined ones as they reported , ”Chuck home ! I came here to study.” as equal as the ones who made frequent calls to home. Many of them reported to have kept dreaming about their homes irrespective of when they had first experience. Also, 60 % said they continued doing the attempts to cope up with homesickness after one month of stay in the hostel.

It can be concluded that calling home frequently has proven to be the successful attempt to cope up with homesickness, whereas dreaming about home during class or while studying stands next.

3.3 Recommending hostel experience:

  

 87.1 % of people said they would recommend hostel experience to any of their juniors (such as brother(s), sister(s), cousins juniors at school etc.). It is also inferred that only people who reported, “Oh !! Horrible it was… distressing…..uffo !!  East or west home is the best.” did not recommend having hostel experience to their juniors. Others fairly recommended having such hostel experience. Majority of those who recommended said, “Felt bad initially, but I made friends then after and started enjoying”.

Also, people who had first experience of staying in hostel after joining college suggested that their juniors should experience the life at hostels. However, the ones who had the first encounter during kindergarten did not recommend such experience to their juniors.

3.4 Personal issues:

65.2% missed their mom when they felt homesick. Dad stands next in the family as he is reported to have missed by just 16.2% of the participants. Siblings, on the other hand prove their significance at home by having a share of 8.1% . Best friends stand next to siblings with 6.5% of reporters. 

Here it is interesting to infer that boys missed their moms and girls missed their dads, irrespective of when they had first homesick experience.   Overall, this makes us conclude that motherly care is what is missed by everyone staying away from home. 17.9% said they were in a relationship before joining hostel. Majority denied that they were not in any relationship before. The interesting fact here is that 69.4%  of people still missed their homes even though they were in a relationship. It goes to prove that no matter whether the person is in a relationship or not, he/she still remains homesick when away from home. So, relationship cannot be a stimulus that could reduce homesickness.

3.5 Personality types:

It is intriguing to relate the personality types of participants to various aspects of homesickness.

We have considered extroverts, introverts, ambiverts and the reserved ones in our study samples.

As ambiverts show a mixture of activities that reflect both intro and extroverted traits we throw light purely on the extroverted, introverted and the reserved ones. It is observed that a total of 37 introverts, 30 extroverts and 18 reserved ones took part in the survey. Rest of them were ambiverts.

Calling home frequently as an attempt to cope up with homesickness remains intact to both extroverts and introverts as both the types report  the same share of 46 % . But, introverts are more determined in saying, ”Chuck home ! I came here to study.” with a count of 14 % in their side. Extroverts reported only 10 % in the case.  The same reflects when both were asked to rate their hostel life experience.

18.9 % of introverts say ,” I never felt because I had strongly made up my mind before going to hostel. So, It didn’t strike me so hard.”  16.6 % of reserved ones said the same standing next to introverts in determination.  Whereas, only 6.6 % of extroverts said so.

However, 40 % extroverts ,by virtue of their nature said,” Felt bad initially, but I made friends then after and started enjoying”. 37 % of  introverts on the other hand said so. In this analysis, reserved ones seem to be the sufferers as only 27 % them seemed to enjoy after joining the hostel.

Again, true to their nature, 16.6 % extroverts reported,” I made friends on my very first day at hostel. In fact, that whole experience was wonderful, I still miss those hostel days ! Nostalgic.” 

Only 8 % of introverts reported that they made friends on the very first day at hostel.

6.6 % of extroverts said,” Oh !! Horrible it was… distressing…..uffo !!  East or west home is the best.” regarding their first experience at hostel. Whereas 18.9 %  introverts and 16.6 % reserved ones said it was a distressing experience.

So, this leads us to the following conclusions on relating personality types to homesickness.

•  Introverts are more determined when it comes to staying at a place away from home.
•  Extroverts don’t find their hostel experience to be a distressing one.
• Calling home frequently as an attempt to cope up with homesickness seems to be significant irrespective of the nature of a person suffering from it.