News Release

'Friendsickness' affects freshman female college students

Peer-Reviewed Publication

Penn State

Realizing that they can maintain their pre-college relationships and still make new friends can help first-year female students overcome "friendsickness," a major stressor during their freshman year, according to a Penn State study.

"Because a student's peer group is the single most powerful influence on personal growth during the undergraduate years, colleges and universities have a responsibility to help first-year students adjust to their new social environment," notes Dr. Jennifer Crissman Ishler, assistant professor of counselor education. "This is especially true at large universities where many first-year student classes contain hundreds of students."

"Part of the adjustment process for first-year students involves grieving the loss of pre-college friendships as they have known. This loss and separation often trigger emotional distress resulting in adjustment difficulties," says Crissman Ishler, co-director of the College Student Affairs Program in the Department of Counselor Education in the College of Education.

Crissman Ishler recently presented her findings in the paper, "Friendsickness and Female Students: Helping Them Adjust to College" at the annual meeting of the American College Personnel Association in Minneapolis. Her study involved 91 first-year, full-time female college students at a large research university with an undergraduate enrollment of 34,000 students and an average freshman class of 6,000.

The students took a required 3-credit seminar in which they were given 5 journal assignments and a final exam. The journal entries chronicled the students' efforts during the first semester to maintain ties with childhood and high school friends while at the same time cultivating new friendships on campus. At semester's end, Crissman Ishler examined and coded journal entries for pre-college friendships, new college friendships, contrast of the two kinds of friendships, and the influence of friendships on students during the critical freshman year.

"Female first year students have a difficult time letting go of their pre-college friendships, a source of comfort and stability, as well as a link to the past," she notes. "Many of the students appeared to grieve the loss of having friends who intimately knew and understood them. They spent much time and energy trying to maintain their pre-college friendships through e-mail, America Online's Instant Messenger, phone calls, visits to each other's campuses and visits home."

This preoccupation with holding on to pre-college relationships would often get in the way of students forming new relationships in college. Female students seemed to fear that new friendships formed in college would lack the depth and intimacy of those friendships that took root in their growing-up years.

"After a month or two of college, first-year female students started to understand the need for making new friends at college. They remained loyal to their pre-college friends, but recognized that it was alright and indeed necessary to have friends at college," says the Penn State researcher.

This threshold was reached when students realized that their pre-college friendships did not exclude the formation of new friendships and that both could co-exist.

"College administrators, faculty, and student affairs professionals must work together to create opportunities for first-year students to meet new people, and become familiar with others in their new environment. This can and should happen both within and outside the classroom," Crissman Ishler notes.

"First-year seminars are an ideal way for instructors and students to create a community where students can discuss their experiences and feelings," she adds. "Orientation activities can aid in bridging the gap between high school and college, providing both an introduction to the school's academic life and opportunities for new students to meet and interact.

"Residence Life staff can also create programs geared toward adjustment and transition issues, and help make sure students are meeting each other and getting involved," Crissman Ishler says. Meanwhile, the Office of Student Activities can direct students to campus clubs and organizations, as well as volunteer programs.

"Above all else, programs targeted for freshmen have to be student-centered, with the professionals in charge being keenly aware of the needs, issues and concerns of first year students," she adds. "The focus has to be on reaching out to them, letting them know that someone on campus cares about them, that their feelings are perfectly normal, and that in time, they will feel comfortable in their new surroundings and they will make new friendships on a par with the old."

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