Verified by College Can Give You Grief
Reports that students can experience grief in the first semester of college, according to Joshua Gold, an assistant professor in counselor education at the University of South Carolina. Possibility of students dropping out of school due to suppressed grief; What Gold recommend to ensure entering students that their feelings are normal.
By PT Staff published September 1, 1998 - last reviewed on June 9, 2016
It's the first day at school. Dad unloads the family car, Mom arranges the dorm room, and then, amid a flurry of hugs and kisses, they depart, leaving the weepy new student behind. That day is the toughest; after a few days of homesickness, freshmen bounce back. Or so we believe. Not so, maintains Joshua Gold, Ph.D., an assistant professor in counselor education at the University of South Carolina. In fact, students can experience profound grief well into the first semester of college.
Too often, though, that grief goes unrecognized and unvalidated; it is "disenfranchised," in Gold's term. "Societally, we tend to look at changes from the most optimistic perspective," he notes. Though freshmen are saying good-bye to childhood, leaving home, and going to an intimidating new place, they aren't supposed to feel anything but happiness and excitement about it.
The suppressed grief and disappointment might make the first year so traumatic, says Gold, that some students drop out. He recommends better orientation programs to assure entering students that their sad feelings are normal.
PHOTO (COLOR): A young man under grief
