How to Stay in Touch with Family and Friends While Studying Abroad?

Studying in abroad is an opportunity of a lifetime for personality enrichment, offering access to wider career possibilities, enhancing quality of life, giving access to global exposure, experiencing diverse culture and travelling a distant land and studying from different prospective. But it comes with price tag, one of which is the constant fomo that your beloved family and friends might forget you, you will not be able to stay connected and your bond with them might get weak because of distance and miscommunication.

 For Pakistani students studying in abroad homesickness is a more severe matter because they live in a closely knitted family oriented atmosphere in Pakistan. It is natural for such fears to overcome your thoughts but thanks to the advanced technological advancements, the distance of seas is just a click away today. How to stay connected with your loved ones when you are working hard in abroad creating your bright future? We have a few very useful tips for you in the following article:

• Create a Whatsapp Group:

Whatsapp family groups are no new to the millennial or people of any generation including Pakistani students. Everyone and anyone owns a smart phone now, you can include your relatives, your cousins, your parents and siblings in your group and keep them updated what you are up to and stay connected with their life on day to day basis. In fact, be the one who takes this initiative, it will make your family understand that you care about them and you want them to know all about you when you are away.

• Add Birthdays, Anniversaries and Special Event Dates to Your Calendar’s Reminders

Everyone wants a customary text one their birthdays, anniversaries or at special events. It is the best way to keep your bond strong with your loved ones and also you will be saved from being labeled as a careless person who never remembers dates of special events. It is easy now for Pakistani students, technology has sorted such trivial issues for humans; if really want to show care to someone, you can make it happen with simple settings on your gadgets.

• Send Gifts on Occasions:

Sending gifts is a prophetic way of increasing affection between people. Even if you can’t afford an expensive gift, sending simplest things as books, a piece of clothing, a greeting card, a bottle of their favorite perfume or a fancy photo frame counts. Your presence and continuous effort to show you care through littlest of actions will leave a great impact on your beloved people’s hearts.

• Video Calling and Skype

When you are away for a long duration of time, texts and emails will not be enough. In older times, when there were no I Phones and I Tabs, when people used to return to their country after several years they were almost unrecognizable to their family. But not now, you can stay in touch through video calling facility of whatsapp, facetime, skype, viber and plenty of others. In fact you must do video calling every now or then or at least once in week because words and feelings are always better understood with gestures and facial expressions.

• Don’t Be Shy to Express Feelings

If you are a shy person by nature or have an introvert personality, you better learn t be expressive. Your loved ones are too far away from you to understand your silence and your facial expressions; they need your words to understand your feelings and emotions. They want you to express you missed them and their presence in your life matters to you. Ask them how they have been, what they are doing, what they are feeling and tell them about you.

• Coping the Time Difference for Pakistani Students

Sometimes even you want it the most, keeping in touch with family and friends back home can be the hardest task because of time difference while studying in abroad for Pakistani students. You have to keep your attendance record straight in the university, probably maintain your part time job, keep up with university fellows and roommates and also focus on your studies besides making constant effort in staying in touch with your family and friends back home. The best way to cope the time difference is arrange video calls and audio calls at weekends and on regular days stay connected via texts so that you don’t disturb their sleep and they don’t disturb yours. Keeping dual clocks on your smart phone will help you greatly, one clock will tell your home country’s time and one will tell the time where you are presently, that way you will be always be able to know when your family is awake and when they are asleep.

Photo sharing is the most convenient and easy method of staying connected with your family and friends. Share photo when you visit a new place while studying in abroad, the restaurants you visit on weekends, photo of your universities in abroad, photos of you with your close friends abroad and where you live and it will manifest a visual reality of your presence in their mind. Ask your family and friends to share the pictures of any outing they do on weekends, gatherings, reunions, events and of special occasions, so they feel you are equally interested about their lives and routines.

• Be Tolerant About Late Replies and Missed Calls

The main reason of alleviation between people is miscommunication and in tolerance. While studying in abroad the chances of these two issues entering between you and your loved ones are very high. You must be tolerant if someone has not replied to your text right away or missed your call when you were missing them, understand they are busy in their lives and so are you but that does not mean your connection is lost. Make yourself tolerant about such trivial things and you will never distant your closed ones from because of miles. People might be far away from each other in miles but they must not be in their hearts, this though is your key of never losing your connection and bond with your beloved family and friends at home while you study abroad.