However, many struggled with the difficulties of independent living, such as structuring their day, household chores, planning their economy and developing autonomous study skills. Obviously, their previous work-strategies - characterised by dependency on others, mainly parents and secondary school teachers - was no longer adaptive in the new context.
Great variability in their coping strategies was evident. Some clung desperately to their home-base for a while, phoning their mother three times a day, taking laundry home and even bringing home-prepared meals back to university. Others remained passive and did nothing – did not clean their room, lived on takeaways, over-spent their money, and slept all day. This was often combined with cries that nobody helped them!