How to survive and thrive at MU as an out-of-state student

Grace: One of the best ways to get used to your new home away from home is exploring the city of Columbia. This past year, my friends and I would often venture off campus to check out local businesses, whether that be doing our homework at different coffee shops (my favorites to work in are Shortwave and Lakota), seeing a movie at Ragtag Cinema or checking out nearby farmers markets on the weekends.

Another great way to immerse yourself in the goings-on of CoMo is by attending or volunteering for local events, like the True/False Film Festival and Unbound Book Festival in the spring. These events offer great opportunities to further familiarize yourself with Columbia, check out some interesting media and meet new people outside of school!

Olivia: Having a Mizzou-based support system in the way of friends and trusted advisers and adults will help you adjust. Plus, if you make friends with someone from Missouri — or a townie from CoMo — they’ll be able to let you in on the secret gems of your new home state and town. 

Venturing beyond the borders of town (if you can) doesn’t hurt either. Kansas City has a great art museum, and St. Louis is great for a baseball game or a mocktail lounge. In between, you can explore antique malls and caverns and lakes and farms (which are super fun to visit!). My parents didn’t let me take my car here the first semester, but taking the bus between cities or hitching a ride with friends let me take plenty of trips to St. Louis.

Coming from a metropolitan area with great public transportation and hustling, bustling nightlife, I get that Columbia might make some of you feel claustrophobic. I learned, though, that if you keep an open mind and treat this as your own sort of study abroad experience, you’ll be golden. 

Abigail: The easiest way to put yourself out there is to talk to the people who live on your floor in the dorms. The people on my floor of Mark Twain became my second family very quickly, and they opened many doors to meet new people all year. 

At the start of the year, try to go to as many activities as possible and introduce yourself to people! Everyone wants to make new friends at the start of the year, so no one will judge you for saying hello. Last year, my group went to the Southwest block party even though we lived at Mark Twain and ended up playing wiffle ball with a bunch of the people who lived there. A random guy introduced himself to me, and we’ve been best friends ever since. Sometimes it can just take one conversation to change your entire year and experience. 

Grace: While getting involved with clubs and extracurriculars is great, don’t put pressure on yourself to join too many. Find one or two things that you really enjoy and stick with those. I’d also recommend checking out other club events on campus, even if you aren’t interested in joining them. My friends and I went to an MU Improv show spur-of-the-moment at the beginning of the school year, and it quickly became something we all looked forward to seeing each week. 

Something that was helpful in putting myself out there academically was taking an Honors Tutorial during the spring semester — Mizzou offers so many interesting seminars and one-credit-hour classes! Taking an Honors Tutorial was not only a great learning experience, but it also allowed me to meet new people in different areas of study I might not have otherwise interacted with, and I’d highly recommend applying to one if you have the space in your schedule.

Olivia: It took me a while to get comfortable with the idea of introducing myself to new people and attempting to make new friends, but it became less daunting when I realized how low the stakes are. This is a huge university, and while some people may have come in with a dozen people from their high school or their lifelong best friend, not everyone did. That means most people were in the exact same boat I was. We were all newbies looking to make connections. 

Another benefit of attending a large university is that if something goes terribly wrong or you just don’t hit it off with a person or even a whole group of people, chances are you can find other friends or join a different club and not have to worry about bumping into them. It’s not the end of the world if you don’t find your people right away.

I also took myself super seriously first semester and thought that if I relaxed or let loose at all, my grades would go down the toilet. That is definitely not the case. Be responsible and careful, do your work,study and seek help when you need it, but also don’t be afraid to have fun. 

Abigail: Call your family. Truly, having constant communication with my twin sister and parents helped me feel more at home even in my dorm room. I feel like there’s a stigma around calling home during college, and I don’t see why. My family is my greatest support system, and I would never want to go a day without talking to them.

When you’re homesick, take a day to care for your well-being. Try to do things that make you happy: Talk to your friends here and from home, buy yourself a coffee and go on a hot girl walk on the MKT Trail. There’s nothing that fresh air, caffeine and communication can’t fix. 

Grace:  Involving myself with extracurriculars, talking to friends and calling my parents often helped me deal with those feelings of distance.  

I think it’s also important to remember that every freshman is going through the same thing, and your classmates and the people in your dorm probably feel similarly. It takes time to work through homesickness, but eventually college will start to feel like a place that’s just your own — and one that you will probably miss when you leave for winter or summer breaks!

Olivia: I think it’s okay to give into your homesickness until you’re “cured” of it. You might never feel completely at home in Columbia, but I found that slowly transitioning away from relying on my home support network to my new Columbia support network definitely helped stave off some of that homesickness second semester. 

In the meantime, though — or at the beginning — I definitely think it’s okay to call your family or friends from back home or even take a trip back home if adjusting is just super hard on you and you’re able to do so. You can take comfort in knowing home will be there for you to return to.

Abigail: The day I came back from visiting home last September, I got what we called the “freshman flu.” I was down for the count for weeks. Being on your own for the first time and having to take care of yourself is a difficult thing to do, but it’s possible. All freshmen go through it, so you’re not alone. If you can’t get yourself to a Walgreens or Target to get medicine, The Mizzou Store sells cold medicine that can help you manage the day-to-day symptoms. 

It can be difficult, but make sure to rest! Your mental and physical well-being is the most important thing, not school.

Grace: Maintaining mental and physical health at college can be hard to navigate in a new setting, especially coming from a state that’s a day’s drive — or more — from Columbia. On the subject of COVID, it’s definitely something you need to prepare for as an out-of-state student. I got COVID in April and had to stay in isolation housing on campus for 10 days because I couldn’t stay in my dorm, nor could I easily drive home to quarantine. Living in isolation housing was not a great experience, yet it was my only option at the time. I would advise out-of-state students to make sure you have a support system in place if you get COVID, which is a very real possibility. Being unable to leave my room and missing out on classes and activities was really hard, and living in isolation housing would have been a lot worse if I didn’t have my parents and friends to lean on for support.

Olivia: If you’re coming to MU from out of state, definitely check out what the deal is with your insurance beforehand. I had to go to the Student Health Center first semester and didn’t know I had to switch something with my health insurance before I sought care in Columbia. 

If you come down with something serious or something happens that the Student Health Center can’t quickly resolve, talk with your family about your options. Do you have relatives somewhere close by who can watch you if you need a surgery? In the unlikely event nowhere in Columbia accepts your health insurance, where’s the nearest facility that does?

In terms of just maintaining your physical health, the Rec has so many awesome machines and fitness classes I loved to take advantage of. When I started to come out of my shell in the second semester, I also found inviting friends to TigerX Group Fitness classes helped strengthen our bond. Friends who sweat together, stay together.

Mental health is also super important, so identify therapists that take your insurance if you need therapy beyond just the free sessions MU offers.

Grace: It’s overwhelming at first, but I think the best way to acclimate to life at college is to embrace all of the changes that come with it. Once I built a routine for myself and started to put myself out there socially, things became less stressful and more exciting. While it can be challenging and scary at times, college is wonderful because you get to meet so many new, interesting people — some are passionate about the same things you are, and some have completely different interests, and that’s what makes it so fulfilling! 

Having friends you can lean on and spend time with is so helpful. Being able to talk to my classmates and the people in my dorm about homesickness and adjusting to college life was invaluable during my freshman year. Remember that you have a lot more in common with others than you might think, and everyone has felt the same as you at one point or another. 

Abigail: Finding places I could frequent helped me fall in love with Columbia. I constantly visited downtown and went to local coffee shops to do work and hang out with friends. Being a part of the community and experiencing the town with the people who live here year-round really helped me feel more at home. The countless Friday nights at Shakespeare’s and early mornings at Acola Coffee with my friends made my Missouri experience a lot more fun. 

I found that if you reach out to people to make a connection, they’ll do the same, and before you know it, you’ll have developed a strong start to a new friendship. 

I also tried to bring pieces of home with me (like a little magnet in the shape of a crab for my mini fridge). Establishing the same routines at MU that you had at home can help you feel a little more “normal.” Something I loved doing at home was making dinner for my family, so I started cooking dinner for my friends in the communal kitchen in my dorm.

Reaching out, saying “yes,” relaxing, exploring and remembering your roots can all help make the adjustment period a little less stressful.