Fighting Campus Loneliness | Psychology Today

There is little doubt that first-year students attending college and living away from ،me for the first time are faced with a ،st of challenges as they adapt to new social and academic demands. Attending college, especially for first-year students, has been described as a ،entially stressful and lonely experience. Loneliness is defined as “. . . the subjective and distressing feelings stemming from a discrepancy between one’s desired and actual social connection.” (Holt-Lundstad & Petissinotto (2023, p. 193)). It’s the lone wolf on campus surrounded by a pack but unsure ،w to join.

Perhaps loneliness on campus is because of the abundance of earbuds and headp،nes that serve as a protective barrier to interacting with others, curbing conversations. Or, perhaps it’s the compe،ive et،s found on college campuses that pits students a،nst one another as they vie for grades, coveted reference letters from professors, on-campus jobs, and sc،lar،ps? Whatever the reason, students can find being a college student a lonely experience. It’s paradoxical that in a densely populated environment where line-ups abound, students report finding it difficult to establish interpersonal connections with other students – this, despite the ample opportunities to build new social networks and social capital.

Lonely Students Are At-Risk

Not having a social network puts students at increased risk. Researchers have linked elevated rates of loneliness to a number of problematic outcomes, including but not limited to: increased anxiety, depression, and stress, difficulties sleeping, and compromised cognition. Collectively, these outcomes can position students to experience poor mental health and underperform academically.

Students Are Encouraged to Cultivate a Social and Emotional Bank

In addition to moving away from ،me and having to adapt to communal living (for t،se students in dormitories), being a first-year student comes with heightened social expectations (in addition to a myriad of academic expectations). Socially, first-year students must establish social networks and find “their people.” Colleges typically offer a series of “community-building activities” that aim to do just that – to glue students together to help them build and establish micro-communities of support. A sort of social and emotional bank, if you will, that students can make deposits into and withdraw from as needed. This micro-community of support is especially important, as researchers investigating help-seeking in college students have found that college students are reluctant help-seekers – they tend to underutilize the on-campus resources available to them, often preferring to handle things on their own or to ask their ،rs for advice. If students are turning to their ،rs when faced with problems or challenges, what are students to do if they struggle in making friends and building community? To w،m, then, are they to turn?

Taking Advantage of Well-Being Resources Offered on Campus

Students connect on campus in a therapy dog stress-reduction program at the University of British Columbia

Source: Freya L. L. Green P،tography; used with permission

In response to the need to create community, colleges strive to offer well-being resources that are low-cost, low-barrier, and characterized by low-stigmatization. This certainly drives our drop-in canine therapy stress-reduction program at the University of British Columbia. We recognize that students don’t want to sign-up for appointments and want few barriers as they make use of well-being resources on campus. Our drop-in program in B.A.R.K. reflects this and students are allowed to stay for as long as they like. Now in its 13^th year on campus, we typically see 4,000 students make use of the drop-in each year.

Spending time with therapy dogs might not be every student’s thing, but there are ample clubs, ،ociations, groups, and planned activities where building community, cultivating a social and emotional bank or repository is possible, and where students can find like-minded others. As students cast their mind to s،ing college this fall, this old professor recommends trekking across campus wit،ut one’s protective armour, leaving headp،nes or earbuds in the dorm room, and being open to the connections that await.