Bring Your Pet to School Day?

Family Pets Ease Anxieties About Leaving Home for College

Along with learning to drive, leaving home for college is one of the first major milestones of adulthood for most teenagers. Because the transition can be a difficult one, many young adults choose to attend colleges close to home. Some even stay at home and attend a local college for a while to acclimate to college life. Dozens of students at universities around the country are choosing an entirely different way to keep that close-to-home feeling alive while they attend to their higher education – by taking the family pet along with them.

You read that right – today’s college students are turning “Bring your pet to school day” into a much larger commitment. The list of universities that are opening their doors to pets of many shapes and sizes – including cats, dogs, birds and even reptiles! – is growing, including Washington & Jefferson College in Pennsylvania, Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Eckerd College in Florida.

The Eckerd College Website explains that the purpose of allowing students to bring the family pet to school with them to live on campus is simply an extension of the right of fellow community members who enjoy having pets.

Keeping a connection to home through your family pet, however, cannot be discounted. Just think of the long hours reading with your cat curled up on your lap, or your family snake (yikes!) wrapped around your neck.

The physical and emotional health benefits of keeping pets with their owners shouldn’t be overlooked, either. Countless studies have shown that spending time with pets increases our health by decreasing stress, high blood pressure and depression – all things that should be taken into consideration for the success of college students.