Every international student at Penn has been homesick at some point. The process is different for everyone; some become afflicted with it the first week of the semester and some the last. These feelings of longing revolve around the routines we once had with our families and friends, like the nights out or the simple trips together. But the similarity for all of us is that we chose to go to Penn — to leave everything behind — because we know this discomfort will help us change for the better.
And so, we brave the discomfort and carry on. We do grow for the better, and we meet more and more people, but these actions always have their own trade-offs. The friend’s party we went to meant missing out on a text or a call from family. Getting a good night’s sleep meant not being able to call in for a friend’s birthday celebration. The movie sequel we watched here meant breaking the promise we made to watch it with friends at home. As more time passes, the more we notice that the people who made home what it is today, are suddenly out of the picture.
But yes, we did choose this. For many students, a school’s distance is even a challenge to be enjoyed rather than detested. I knew I wanted to attend a school that was far away because it meant I could have new kinds of opportunities that I would have never gotten if I stayed. Still, the distance between international students and our loved ones creates an intense disconnection. At this point, we text our friends and family to catch up, but we don’t actually “live” the rest of our lives with them.
When Penn celebrated its homecoming last semester, two super typhoons (or a Category 5 hurricane in the United States) hit the Philippines. And on those days, I could not shake off this irrational urge to constantly text my family and friends. I call it irrational because it was evident they were okay — we even got on a call while the typhoon was blaring. The uneasiness stayed because I was here, safe and sound, while my friends and family battled winds and rain, and suffered from power outages after. And it didn’t subside until the typhoons moved on.
In the most basic sense, we are growing up without our loved ones, and they are moving on without us. That makes things so much more scary and bleak, and I think this is also called homesickness. But this feels a bit different. It hits harder, and these feelings become more than just longing but a scary amalgamation of guilt, fear, and also envy. We wish for the close relationships and support systems we had before coming here; but we can’t have both.
This is the cost of being international. We occupy this unique space where to grow means we have to inevitably let go of something. Presidential Penn Compact Professor of Philosophy Jennifer Morton describes these as “ethical costs,” defined as “difficult sacrifices” that many people make in order to “transcend the circumstances into which they are born.” In fact, the sheer guilt these separations hold can serve as a deal-breaker for many students. For many students, both domestic and international, choosing to stay home over traveling for school means being able to help raise younger siblings or save money for food and rent.
What is perhaps the real consolation here is that the cost of these feelings will never linger forever. It will be there, and it will be unbearable. If you get through this alive though, you are said to stand to reap benefits that will stand the test of time. But the thing is, there is no guarantee that it will. I can’t promise those benefits, and I don’t think anyone can. The only way to make these costs worth it, is to make them worth it.
ADY LOTIVIO is a College first year studying earth and environmental science from Bicol, Philippines. His email is jlotivio@sas.upenn.edu.
