If you're feeling homesick here a few things you can do to help yourself:

• Personalise your new room.
• Do the same things you enjoyed at home but also try something new.
• Get involved with your new flatmates, with your new course mates, join a society or look elsewhere in the city to get involved in activities that you enjoy.
• Try to establish a routine as soon as possible. The fuller your days are, the less time you will have to feel homesick or lonely.  You could try volunteering or exercise - this is a great way to boost your mood.  This might be by joining an organised group or simply by building in exercise to your daily routine.  See the WellU programme at the Student Union which offers social opportunities to exercise or YSJ Active who run a variety of fitness classes.
• Look after yourself by remembering to eat properly and make sure you are sleeping.  If you're tired it is much harder to manage difficult emotions.
• Keeping in good contact with people from home but also give yourself time to get involved at University.  A good tip is to arrange to visit home in three or four weeks so you have something to look forward to.
• Be realistic, don’t put yourself under pressure to be happy and successful all the time.
• Acknowledge your feelings and accept them.  Tell yourself the feelings will pass.  They almost always do.  Remind yourself that the vast majority of your peers are feeling or have felt like you.  They, like you, just don’t talk about it.
• Remind yourself of all the reasons why you chose to study at York.  Think about the ways in which your studies will enhance your future career prospects.
• Write down all the positive things about being away from home – your freedom, meeting new friends etc.
• If the difficulty of academic work has come as a shock then seek help from your tutor, or use the Study Development service to help improve your academic skills.
• Recognise that you can feel both homesick and be having a great time.  By enjoying yourself you are not being disloyal to those you miss.
• Give yourself time to adjust you don't have to get everything right straight away.  Nor do you have to rush into making major decisions about staying or leaving.
• Remember you may feel homesick at any point during University.  It is not just something that happens in the first few weeks.