The college experience may look differently for someone living on campus vs. someone living off-campus and commuting to classes. But, the main thing to remember is you aren’t alone. Both types of students can find their sense of belonging and navigate the complexities of becoming more of an adult by following the advice offered by Kirk Fasshauer and Tiffani Fritzsche. In Episode 9, Part 2 of 2 of Finding Your Balance: A Mental Health Podcast presented by Peace River Center and Southeastern University, our hosts dive into their top five pieces of advice for both those living on campus and off.

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Thank you for joining us today for part two of our two-part series as we take a

look at the mental health challenges of being a residential versus commuter student.

So what would be the five things that you would impart to somebody living on

campus? Yeah, gosh that's a good question. I think the first thing would be to

realize that it's okay to need to figure out a new relationship with your family.

And for me, I definitely had to figure it out because it was almost that conflict

of who am I because my whole life I was this version and now I'm an adult and

going back, I didn't know how to even see myself. Am I an adult? Do I need to

ask permission to go do this? Do I not? Like, what do I do? Or even whenever I

would go home, you know, all of my friends were at home. All of my, you know, my

high school friends, my childhood friends, is it okay if I go and see them?

Or is that taking away time from my family because they want to see me? So just

feeling obligated to make everyone happy. So I think the first one would be

understanding that it's okay to have to have that transition. It's okay to struggle

for a minute with finding what the new normal is for your relationship because the

relationship is gonna change. And I think now as a parent I can look and see and

my children are still small but I'm thinking about my mom's experience and I'm sure

she probably was having a hard time. I've seen her daughter who she's raised now

being an adult and maybe wondering, well, gosh, like what are the new boundaries,

right? And so I think being willing to have an open conversation of like, yeah,

this is weird. The second one I think for me would be finding ways to anchor

myself in this new environment, in this new culture, because college experience is an

entire culture, you know, and being willing to try new things but finding ways to

anchor myself so I'm not just floating because if I don't make any friendships, if

I don't find any ways to connect, then I'm just floating and if I'm having bad

days or if I'm not in a good place, who's going to know? Who's going to check on

me because I haven't connected with anyone to establish any sort of relationship? And

so it's so easy I think to have your needs overlooked when there's no one looking

at you, right? And so making a connection. So I think that would definitely be

number two. Connecting with my professors. I wanted them to know my name. I wanted

them to know who I was. Connecting with you know social groups on campus. Just

finding ways to connect because I think all of those connections anchor you. And

then if you are having a hard time, that professor knows you now. You know, you

can reach out and ask for help, or you can reach out and ask for guidance. You're

not just a name on a paper, you're someone that they know. The third thing I would

say is sleep. (laughing) - Okay. - Because there's so much all the time,

and Kirk, there's too much. I mean, they jam, pack your schedule with all of these

events because, you know, campus life, they know that not every event is gonna be

appealing to every single person. - Right, right, especially that freshman year, yeah.

- Exactly, and so there's so many things. And I think sometimes there's that fear of

missing out of like, well, I've gotta do everything. You really don't. You know,

carving out time for self -care, sleeping,

because the other part about it, You know you have roommates that are your same age

that are not your siblings So you actually want to talk to them and hang out with

them So I think it would be really easy to like slumber party every night, but you

know setting those boundaries of self -care four I think would be Actually reading the

material that you're supposed to be reading for class okay because There's so much

to do and because there's so much to do you know that that can be a good thing

it creates opportunities for connection it also can create unlimited opportunities for

distraction right and so I think for me it's so easy sometimes to just slide right

under the radar I'm just doing just enough to pass that why are you actually at

college right why are you or why are you paying all of this money because you

wanna walk away with a degree so you can get a job or the career of your choice

but so you can learn information and that information that you're learning really has

a greater impact in my opinion than the piece of paper. So am I gonna spend all

of this money in all of these years and walk away and cheating myself because I

didn't really read the book. I don't really remember the information because a lot

of people you can do bullet points and you can learn just enough to pass the test

but once the test is over do you still have any of that knowledge? And I think

sometimes when you get this mentality of students I'm like oh my gosh it's just

busy work and I can tell you some of it you know like oh maybe um but a lot of

it actually that information is beneficial for you down the road,

and especially even in graduate school, there's so many books to read. There's so

much. And you can pass by doing the bare minimum, right?

And by going through school just to pass the test or going through school to learn

so you're equipped. So that would be number four, actually doing the work, because

you can get by, but if you do the work, you're going to walk away with so much

more than the person who didn't. And I think number five is giving yourself

permission for your friendships to change. And that was really hard because I had

this like season of grief because a lot of my friends that were like, "Oh my true,

like ride or die friends are in high school, like these are your people." I can

count on one hand the people from that season of my life that are still speaking

into my life and really impacting my life, but at the time I thought, "Well,

these are going to be my people forever." Because when you're young forever has not

taken a lot of time yet. And so I think that knowing that some friendships are for

a season and some friendships, they're supposed to happen to teach you a lesson or

to help you prepare for something and some friendships last forever and it's okay

for friendships to have a purpose and I have friends you know that I grew up with

that are still dear dear to my heart and I have college friends that I met and

they were great supports and I don't talk to them a lot now and I have college

friends that I've met and they've changed the course of my life and they're still

the dearest friends and so I think understanding that that there's different types

of friendships and being okay with like friendships changing because we change and

that's not necessarily a bad thing. Right. Did any of those surprise you? No. No,

no, no, the way, because I understand you and we've talked a lot before,

so no, that's, those are good things. Well, I think there's a guilt sometimes in

letting go of people are letting go of things and moving from a very small town

which was a wonderful town to the town that I'm in now, not everybody has the same

vision for their life and not everybody has the same motivation and that's okay but

because mine is different than some of the people that I grew up with, realizing

it's okay for our path to go to different roads and that doesn't mean we don't

care about each other, that doesn't mean that we wouldn't be there for each other,

it just means we're different now. And I think that separation, I think the

underlying theme is like separating and growing and that's not bad.

And two, there's that sense of loss, you know, you're right, the friendships change,

there are seasonal friends, there are friends that'll be for life -long, you know,

but... - And when you're five, you think everyone is gonna be... - Right, exactly,

exactly. So from the commuter standpoint, you know, the five things I would impart

on somebody in those situations is you've got that independence.

So yeah, you have a lot more choices, but there's some struggles that come with

those choices. First of all, your routine,

you still may have the oversight of parents,

and in some cases, under my roof, it's the house rules kind of deal.

You have to make a choice. Do you want to continue with that if that's kind of

what goes on there, or do you have the levity of some more independence? So you

have to make a choice, and you have to make a choice, and levity of some more

independence. So you have to make a choice. And some of it's financial. In my case,

it was a little bit more financial than it was anything else. Couldn't afford to

live off campus on my own. And I was too close to home to be on campus.

And so I was like, eh, it made sense. So it was more a convenience kind of thing.

So those choices-- think about those choices and what you might have to do to

commute.

I don't have any regrets about that. There's some things I do think I missed out,

and that's probably part of one of the things I would say is that fear of missing

out on certain things. As a commuter, you'll have to be more intentional and looking

out for those opportunities to connect. The freshman year, you have those freshman

mixers and all of that and what I did notice is the people that I connected with

briefly during those little get -togethers and the meet and greets and stuff like

that, you could see the differences in those that commuted and those that were

living on campus. Those friendships for those that were on campus seemed to create a

different kind of a bond, a stronger bond versus the commuters who, you know,

we connected, "Hey, how are you doing?" And it was a different level of friendship,

so be mindful of that. And if you want to make those connections, you have to seek

that out a lot more. So two things, understand that you've got some choices in the

living arrangements and how that works, understanding that you might be sacrificing a

little bit of independence if you're still living at home, because you might still

be under the "I gotta pass everything through mom and dad" kind of structure.

The second is being intentional and seeking out those connections in college life and

those friendships, and

- Probably adding that time in there to do so. Sometimes you write the freshman and

sophomore years in college, they load you up with the classes or need you to load

up with the classes, which is fine, but it doesn't help with the study groups and

things like this that are part of that whole experience as well. And it does, as a

commuter, makes it a little bit challenging. If there's a group project, everybody's

on campus, you're not, you've got to schedule time and having a job on top of that

makes it challenging. So again, those opportunities,

joining clubs, you know, being part of those groups, you've got to be intentional in

that. The third thing I would do is, you know,

come up with a plan. Again, think of a For me it was it was coming up with a

budget and in having a Two two kinds of plans one is a financial plan one is just

kind of a daily kind of plan for yourself create that routine for yourself because

While I lived at home. There was still that sense of a routine Yeah,

my parents had to go to work and you had to get up with them and you had to go

off into your thing. They went off into their thing. So that's how it was like in

my life. And it's not the same for everybody, but think of your plan and try to

slowly start to separate from the parental structure as much as you can.

- Well, jumping in, I know you've got four and five, but you reminded me of

something. of something, I think that for me, this was a season that I had to

learn how to advocate for myself, right? Because growing up in that small town,

everybody knew me, and so, you know, my mom was around or everyone knew my mom,

and so it's one of those things where it's like, well, they're going to treat you

nicely because, like, I know your mom, you know, they're going to see you in the

grocery store every week. And so nobody knew me here, so if I needed to stand up

for myself, I was going to have to stand up for myself. If I needed to resolve a

conflict, I was going to have to resolve the conflict because my mom wasn't there,

my family wasn't there. And so learning, so like 5.5,

learning that all conflict isn't bad, that conflict can actually be

So, you know, being on campus and having, you know, I had the one roommate that I

knew, but the next semester and, you know, all the semesters following, I would have

roommates I didn't know. And how do you navigate, you know, shower schedules or if

someone messes with your things, I had a roommate one time, whenever I would go

away to, I had a morning class, she would go into my drawer without permission and

eat my snacks. That was weird. And the way that I found out was my class got canceled and I came back and there she was with my bag of Cheetos and orange fingers. I’m like what’s going on here? And so like what do you even say in that situation? You know what I mean. So I think it’s like an incubator of learning new coping skills you’ve never used before. I’d know exactly what

to say if it was a sibling, 100%, but if it's a stranger,

because really roommates, you know, they are strangers to a degree, and so I think

learning how to resolve conflict while trying to preserve some sort of,

you know, friendship or relationship or whatever it was, that's something that I

didn't necessarily have before to a degree, because everyone in my life I knew and

everyone in my life I'd known my whole life right and so that was a big change

and I think that that's something that new college students can expect because there

will be conflict because anytime people are living under the same roof that you're

not related to there's that level of gosh like how do I handle this right right

right you had mentioned something about reading and reading the materials well not

being on campus Not being on campus. I did not have that pressure so much to be

connected. Well, again, the friendships were slightly different. Well,

I had some really good friendships, but you're right, they're seasonal. And so at

that time in my life, they were very important. They were helpful. We supported each

other through, you know, not only college, classwork struggles, but other struggles as

well at that time. And I think being off campus, they gave me an opportunity to

get out of that chaos too, because they can be chaotic. So I had that opportunity

to get away and I could get into my studies a little bit more and I could read

the material, like you said. And again, being a book person,

I tended to enjoy that anyway. But having those moments,

So I think as somebody who commuted,

I had to plan extra time to set aside, 'cause some of your time is taking up and

driving back and forth. So you've gotta figure out, okay, I've got this chunk of

time here that's not gonna be beneficial for anything. So other than driving back

and forth. And so What I would do is suggest as number four is when you set up

your schedule to really look at the block of classes.

Now I know a lot more is structured around the blocks and classes by the school

nowadays. Back then we had a little more freedom to choose our blocks. Not a lot,

but you still had some choices to make. And so But if you're able to choose,

I would actually work in some time to have those social moments where you could go

to whatever the student center is or the place where people congregate,

hang out at the coffee shop and have that time. Again, it's an intentional thing to

sit and make some of those connections for friends, work projects, school projects,

and things like that.

You know, the other part, I would say, is know the resources, so I guess this is

my number five, is know the resources that are available to you as a student on

campus, because they're there for everybody on campus, not just those that live on

campus, but those that commute as well, have access to all of these services,

and what is there available that can help you kind of connect. And I know some

college campuses may even have commuter support groups. And in some cases,

they help each other out in carpool if your car breaks down and things like that.

So see if that's something that may be available on your campus, because that could

be another way to connect with people and another way to build those friendships and

network for classes. And I remember some of my friends in college,

heck, because we were up in the north and it gets cold out there. We'd sit in a

car with a heater on and just have that personal conversations in the cars about

things going on in our lives and things going on on campus with coursework and

stuff like that so it's a different kind of connectivity like you said so a little

more a little more effort but I go back to you know and you mentioned advocacy

part of connecting with those resources is advocating for yourself because as we

start to become adults we have to advocate for for ourselves because the family

isn't always going to be there, mom and dad aren't always going to be there to

have your back. You've got to be able to say, "Hey, this is what I need or this

is what I would like to have happen." Now, does it always happen that way? Maybe

not. It doesn't hurt to ask because a no is a no sometimes, but sometimes there's

a maybe, and it's like, okay, we have room to compromise, and you never know. So

wrapping up, the differences in, you know, commuter life versus campus life.

I mean, there's some very specific differences, but I think that the underlying issue

is the same, learning how to transition, learning how to regulate, learning how to,

you know, figure out, well, who are you in the season, how to adapt? Yeah, so if

you are listening, Kirk and I, we are both directors at Peace River Center, and if

you live in our service area, we would love to talk to you about ways that we can

support you, ways we can support your community, but if you're outside of our

listening area, there are resources available. Yes, and you can access a lot of

those resources just to simply talk to somebody if you want to. You can connect

with, like, 2 -1 -1 to find out community resources that are available but if you're

on your college campus by all means definitely check out what's available a lot of

college campuses have a counseling center that you can tap into get information from

just to find out what it's like for college life. So thank you for joining us

today and please join us again

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