As the winter holiday season approaches, 22-year-old graduate student, Sydney Harris, wants nothing more than to spend the holidays with her family. But in being 17 hours away from home as a full-time graduate student, the option to travel isn’t really an option at all.

Many college campuses close over breaks, leaving only essential services and facilities online for accessibility. Some institutions allow students to reside on campus for a prorated fee, others partner with local hotels to provide housing accommodations to students, and others implement on-campus work programs that operate over breaks. The HuffPost News states that at most institutions, student housing is founded on the assumption that students living on-campus have somewhere to go over extended breaks, but many don’t.

So, what does this mean for students like Sydney? A first-year graduate student. A full-time graduate student. A student of color attending a predominantly white institution (PWI). A young black woman on her own, the farthest she’s ever been from home and everything she’s ever known for the first time in her life.

Furthermore, how do factors such as these affect students like Sydney? The diverse student.