My May '20 grad had his job offer rescinded in March '20, however he was fortunate to land another by end of April. They asked him to start right after finals in May and he has been there ever since - great company and he really likes what he’s doing. He was promoted earlier this year, has done a bit of business travel which he loved but mostly is WFH. Lives in the city with friends and has softball, basketball leagues, regular volunteer gig, etc.
He’s very happy with life and I’m so happy for him. Never complained with all that he missed out on his last semester at college and though he spent a lot of time interviewing for the job he accepted in Dec '19 he really persevered which I was so happy to see.
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My 2020 grad had a rough start, but she’s doing OK now. She was a photography major, and it’s hard to photograph via Zoom! She lived at home from March-December 2020, then moved into an apartment in Portland and got a job as a nanny for a few months. Now she’s photographing food for a local grocery store chain (her employer is a photography company, not the store). She’s convinced a couple of her good friends from school in PA to move here. She’s renting studio space with one of them, a talented painter, so I’m hoping she will stick around awhile. After Portland instituted rent control measures, her landlord sold the building and the new owners just gave her and her roommate 30 days notice. She’s been looking for a new place for months, but it’s hard to find anything.
After a bridesmaid infected her and most of the wedding party in PA a couple of weeks ago, she’s pretty discouraged about the whole situation. She lost graduation, her last jazz band concert, her big senior art show that she’d just finished preparing for, etc., etc. She didn’t even get to tell her professors goodbye. It really isn’t fair what these young people have had to endure for over two years. At least she knows she has her dad and me as a safety net.
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I do wonder what will happen to this cohort of covid kids.
This thread is a small sample of students who (probably) have similar profiles, but I think the general theme seems to be resiliency.
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Studies say that as a group, kids who graduate during a recession never make up the pay difference they would otherwise have. I wonder if this cohort will move employers more often, or have a harder time settling in (not counting these posters).
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I’ve wondered that too. For a subset fo the cohort of recent college grads or people only a couple years into the workforce, the financial upside of being able to work remotely for 1-2 years, often back home with their families, could materially improve their long term financial health versus peers recently before them. So many of the young people at my employer returned home, reducing the vast majority of their living expenses (no rent, no food costs, no work clothes, commute costs, etc.). At an age when most are just getting by, some of these young adults got to develop nest eggs.
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And to be fair, our daughter got just a ton of money from unemployment and stimulus packages. From Maine as well as the feds. We all just got another check for $850! So that’s helped her buy some really good photographic equipment for her studio. She’s thankful for that. Oh, she used the $850 to cover her losses from the wedding - as maid of honor, she had paid for activities and it was too late to cancel them.
The downside though for many jobs is losing the opportunity for in person mentoring, observation of how “successful” more senior co-workers do their jobs and networking within the company. Granted for some jobs, this is less important, but for jobs requiring team effort and where relationships within a company are important for career growth, WFH is not so great in the long run.
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My 2021 grad had an awful senior year. Fully remote and in a highly locked down area. By the end of it, her mental health was very low. After graduation, she worked that summer at a camp which was hugely affected by covid (staffing was at 50%) and it was one of the hardest jobs ever, but also through networking there she landed an excellent job in her field from camp connections. The job is 100% remote but because of that personal connection, she does have a strong mentor and the job and other career growth opportunities are working out very well. But she has really only now rebounded mentally from 2021, and I think will always feel deeply about all that she missed out on senior year, and where it put her mental health.
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Though a recession is bad for companies as a group, some of the best companies are founded during a downturn and find it easier to flourish (and attract talent) when there’s not so much competition.
I wonder whether the same could be true for individuals, where it’s bad collectively but the most talented can shine and actually progress faster due to lack of competition for internal opportunities when companies are running lean on staffing.
I like what @Lindagaf said about this group being resilient. I agree. They also were young adults. And here on CC, most of them probably had a really great support base/education base/ decent success in life already.
The group I’d worry about is the very young. Children under age 5 who had no socialization for a couple of years. Early elementary kids who experienced their first couple of years of formal education over a zoom camera with a teacher they could not touch and classroom habits they did not get to develop.
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Seems like that would benefit graduates a bit ahead of the recession (who are already embedded at their workplaces and survive the cut backs and have a chance to thrive with fewer peers) than those graduating during the recession who have trouble getting hired in the first place, and have to do so with less balanced leverage.
FWIW, I graduated in a recession. It turned out alright in the long run but definitely wasn’t optimal at the time and it probably did set me back 2-3 years.
Arguably 2020 wasn’t a recession, just a temporary mismatch of demand and supply, as it was preceded and followed by very tight labor markets. And we’ve heard in this thread how those 2020 grads who already had offers in hand generally seem to have fared OK.
If the recession is coming for real later this year, then the 2020 and 2021 graduates who have already started a career might fit your criteria for success during those more challenging times.
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Let’s get back on topic please.
My 2020 college grad with ASD is completely stuck and is still trying to find her way. Ever since graduating, she’s been living at home with us and can’t seem to find a way to move forward. She’s highly anxious and college took so much out of her. I think the last two years have been time for her to recover and process and just try to deal with her mental health issues. It’s been a difficult two years.
One works in teleconferencing and, um, did well. One got delayed in finishing a PhD in a performing art that could not have a performance, but as a result got a lot more teaching experience, and one is currently in a partial hospitalization program with a sort of agoraphobia from COVID isolation (preexisting bipolar 1).
My prof. kid did a lot of accommodating of students who were struggling. It has all been very hard on these young people. Some got sick, some had families who got sick.
My housing situation does not really offer room for kids to come home unless they sleep on the couch. In the long run that may be a good thing but of course we like to offer shelter and refuge. I did it on Zoom!
My son was finishing his last year undergrad when COVID hit and his sister had her baby the week before. He was across the country and not sure at first what to do. He stayed at his gf’s home for a couple of weeks until it was obvious it would be a long term shut down. Then he came home for a little over a month. It was interesting with everyone at our house D, new baby, baby’s father (on and off), S and S’s gf for a couple of weeks. During that time he grew a lot. He helped out at home, cooked, cleaned, helped with the housework and studied. He really appreciated his gf. They had broken up for about a month over Christmas and he was so glad they worked it out! They were there for each other through it all.
He was then lucky to go off to another state for his summer job which was not cancelled. The only problem was he couldn’t do all the things he had originally planned. He did love his work and adopted a kitten. Then he started his first year of veterinary school virtually. Not ideal. He learned he could do it. They did get to go in to labs twice a week but he only met a few people and the class feeling has never really been there. As a result he got to know his professors better which has helped him find jobs since then. Now entering his third year of vet school and is much more mature because of all the adversity. He and his now fiancée are very close but they don’t have a lot of other friends. Undergrad they had been in sororities and fraternities and very social. The pandemic made them less social. Not sure if that will last or not. He is much more focused on his career and academic goals than before. He did change specialization ideas but I think that would have happened anyway.
His fiancee did change courses during the pandemic. She did some soul searching and realized that it was her mother that wanted her to be a doctor and she really wanted to be a PA. She did not want all the years of school. She took a gap year and starts PA school this year.
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My May 2020 grad son was in an apartment with 4 friends when the spring semester went remote. I think having the friend bubble helped them get through that last semester. He and his friends stayed together through their lease end in August (still working his school job), then S moved home.
He found a job in the city near us but has been working remote the whole time, living with us. He’s received great raises and bonuses, and is content with his work and living situation.
We have continued to observe strict distancing/masking to protect my high risk mom, whom I care for in our home, so although it’s wonderful having S here, I wish he had more of a social life. He does see his high school friends to hang out with outside on the weekends and to play tennis with, but I feel sorry he hasn’t had in-person contact with his workmates and bosses. He’s my kid who never complains about anything, so it’s hard to tell if this extended remote work is affecting him.
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@psychmomma that is a tough situation but it sounds like he is handling it well. I would speculate his relationships with family are good enough to sustain him, along with remote work. Young people with health issues, or who need to protect an elderly family member, can feel left behind. Nice weather outside can help!
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My 2020 grad has fared well. She had planned on working for two years before attending law school, but she wasn’t sure how that was going to look during Covid. After graduation she had an 11 month long virtual fellowship during which she lived with us and saved a good amount of money. She stayed in contact with her friends from school, and they remain a constant source of support for each other, despite having been scattered to the four winds when the school closed. There were lots of long phone calls, more than I remember her having in all of high school. Zoom coffee chats were also very popular in the group.
A couple of months before the end of her fellowship, an opportunity to do policy work in D.C. was offered to her. It was with an organization she’d hoped to work for in the future when she had more experience under her belt. She moved to D.C… The job has been a mix of WFH and in person meetings, and she loves it. She has friends from undergrad in the city, as well as friends from her fellowship, and since she prefers a small friend group, she has been very happy with her social life. The friends with whom she navigated the last quarter of college and the first year as a college graduate are all still close.
As for law school, she begins in the fall.
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