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Are you there yet?

It’s that time when being at home feels suffocating and friends and family are starting to get on your nerves more than normal. An anxious feeling is creeping into your every thought, and you’re always thinking about college.

Still, move-in day seems so far away. Hey, you’re still thinking about finishing your applications, forget getting accepted anywhere yet. But let’s face it—you’re ready to go to college.

But are you, really? Planning for college is an exciting time, but it can also be a nerve-wracking experience. The transition from home life to college life has never been more overwhelming.

According to the Higher Education Research Institute at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), more than 30 percent of college freshmen feel “frequently overwhelmed by all I have to do,” compared with 16 percent who answered that way in 1985.

The academic and psychological changes you’ll experience during the transition from high school to college are profound. The way you cope with change and anxiety is crucial to your success.

“Anxiety develops when we separate from something we know,” says Kate Shroeder-Bruce, a psychiatric nurse practitioner and associate professor of nursing at the University of Rochester. “With college students moving into young adulthood, struggle with identity is common. They begin to separate, form their own thoughts and become who they are. Students who will be successful most often know from learning as adolescents that if they break rules, they will get in trouble. They have made mistakes by their own decisions and had reasonable consequences. They can go to college with a sense of adult behaviors.”

If your parents have been strict throughout high school, though, you may be overwhelmed by the freedom you’ll have at college. Struggling with this independence can affect your social and academic performances. In some cases, being emotionally and academically overwhelmed can lead to depression, mental or anxiety disorders.

Shroeder-Bruce says that many students who become depressed were nurtured greatly by their parents prior to leaving for college. She says these students become terrified and depressed because of their lack of confidence and may become involved in serious relationships early on. Those relationships can give them feelings of safety.

Freshmen tend to form tight-knit groups of close friends, Shroeder-Bruce says. After new students become more comfortable and form their own identities, they become more selective with their friends. You are likely to have a very different group of friends as an upperclassman than you have as a freshman.

Students who join sororities and fraternities usually feel a need to surround themselves with a family-like atmosphere, Shroeder-Bruce says. This is normal, but over-connecting with a group can be unhealthy. It may be a sign that your need to belong is stronger than your need to develop your own identity.

Don’t rely on your instructors to help you adjust to college life. Professors balancing their own work may not realize that you are struggling with the transition from high school to college. This is true “especially for freshmen entering college, since the faculty would…not be familiar with the student’s mental state in high school,” says Bruce Friedman, professor of community and preventive medicine at the University of Rochester.

Friedman says that the best people on campus to recognize your struggle with the transition is your resident advisor (RA) and other students.

More often than not, however, college students find healthy outlets for the anxiety that comes with the academic and emotional demands of college. Such outlets include participating in sports, hanging out with friends or getting involved in extracurricular activities.

Many colleges and universities also offer classes or seminars for new students to ease the transition into college life.

St. Bonaventure University in Olean, N.Y., offers University 101, a three-credit course that teaches students the value of study and time-management skills, acquaints students with the history of the university and the facilities around campus, such as the teaching and learning center. The course also hosts faculty, staff and outside guests who give students a better acquaintance with services and opportunities on campus.

The key to managing the transition to college is learning how to balance. That means eating right, taking care of yourself physically and also managing your time well. These actions will ensure that you can handle the transition into college both academically as well as emotionally.

College can be a wonderful experience. Knowing how freshmen typically react to their new freedoms will help you gauge your own actions. Take advantage of your opportunities in this next stage of life, and embrace the positive ways it might change you!

Jen Liebel is a student at St. Bonaventure University in Olean, N.Y.

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