Pandemic Pathways: College Graduates Stalling,Regressing,and Pivoting during COVID-19

Abstract

This study focuses on young adults as they navigated work, relationships, and health disruptions during 21 months of “amplified uncertainty” in the United States. Using a longitudinal approach, I interviewed 20 diverse college graduates from seven selective four-year universities across the United States three times over the course of the pandemic to understand change over time in approaches to work, health, and relationships. Study participants were beginning a major life transition when COVID lockdowns began in March 2020. Although most anticipated uncertainty in this transition period, they were unprepared for disruptions precipitated by a massive global health scare. In the context of COVID, many of the graduates found themselves stalling, regressing, pivoting, reflecting, and ultimately, following new and revised pathways to adulthood. The end result is a rescripting of adulthood with new developmental milestones: self-reflection, openness to uncertainty, and intentionality regarding health and well-being.

We are different from other generations, because we have experienced an extra level of hardship due to COVID-19. But maybe if it is harder now, the future is gonna be a breeze, you know? (Kelly)

Elder’s (1974) classic sociology study, Children of the Great Depression, captured an age cohort in a particular historical context and set the stage for a sociology of the life course that allows us to see age and identity in socio-historical context. Almost half a century later, Settersten et al. (2020) called for research on the socio-historical impacts of COVID-19 through a life course lens, with attention to unpredictability in life transitions. The transition to adulthood was becoming more complex; markers of success for a college graduate in 2020 seemed to differ from that of their parents’ generation, who may have been shaped by narrow social scripts (home, marriage, children) and economic safety nets. When these options are blocked or delayed, is “adulting” (the act or practice of attending to ordinary tasks required of a responsible adult) put on hold, or can it be redefined? This research offers rich evidence of pivoting and redefining adulthood in a pandemic.

This study focuses on young adults as they navigated work, relationships, and health disruptions during 21 months of COVID-19 surging in the United States. The year 2020 was supposed to be a milestone year for members of the class of 2020. It was the year they were poised to “launch,” the culmination of many years of hard academic work. Instead of celebrating graduating from college and starting new and exciting lives, March 2020 to December 2021, however, was punctuated by exacerbated anxiety around mortality and living in, as K described it, “a post-apocalyptic movie.” Instead of practicing adulting—in the form of independence from parents, taking risks, and entering new social settings—I found that most gravitated to familiar and safe spaces, back with parents and guardians. Lockdowns led to missed celebrations and rituals, including graduations, dances, diplomas, and senior trips. The culminating months of their senior year of college went up in smoke, and suddenly, these 20-somethings had to figure things out for themselves at a time, as Trey described, of “amplified uncertainty.” Although college graduates were preparing for new chapters of life and a degree of uncertainty, suddenly, nothing seemed to be certain or familiar. The social script was interrupted, leaving young 20-somethings like Adeline asking, “Where’s the manual for this?”

A pandemic sociology of the life course is ideally attentive to change over time (Pickersgill 2020). In this study, I ask: How do young adults navigate change and uncertainty in a pandemic? How might they redefine adulthood and health in important ways? Using a qualitative longitudinal approach with an intersectional lens, I suggest in this article that during the height of the pandemic in the United States, from March 2020 to December 2021, college graduates came to experience young adulthood in terms of stalling, regressing, and/or pivoting in new directions. For many, all three phases were experienced in this pandemic year of change and fits and starts. First, many put plans on hold, and then, as the pandemic continued into its second wave, many were forced to redefine success. Social expectations attached to work, relationships, and health had to be redefined. For many, a newfound opportunity to focus on being instead of doing or slowing down instead of powering up was ultimately welcome and central to creating their own pandemic pathways into adulthood. Definitions of success may have been altered. Ultimately, this study suggests that self-reflexivity, openness to uncertainty, and attentiveness to health and well-being became new and enduring markers of emerging adulthood during (and potentially after) the COVID-19 pandemic.

Literature Review

Previous sociological research (Waters et al. 2011) on shifting definitions of adulthood suggests that traditional markers of adulthood, such as leaving home, finishing school, marriage, having children, and finding a job, have been reordered by recent generations, newly contextualized by the racial diversity of this age cohort, and/or delayed. Most recently, research with Canadian young adults suggests that the most important and enduring contemporary markers of adulthood are leaving home and establishing financial independence (Mitchell and Lennox 2020). Furstenburg et al. (2004) argues that “growing up is harder to do” now that it takes longer to secure a full-time job that pays enough to support a family, and thus, families provide financial support for longer. Mossakowski (2011) finds that timing of adult transitions—especially in one’s 20s and 30s—can have long-term mental health consequences, especially in the context of job loss or failure to achieve educational or socioeconomic aspirations. Shanahan (2000) reminds us that individual “markers” of adulthood are shaped by both agency and institutional pathways. Thus, young people’s plans are constrained by systems; as society changes, the transition to adulthood is in flux.

In the decade before the pandemic, research revealed that the transition to adulthood was becoming longer, more variable, and risk-laden (Waters et al. 2011). The McArthur working group on the transition to adulthood found that this phase of life is now an “extended transition” and is more commonly constituted by a series of smaller steps rather than significant shifts (Berlin, Furstenberg, and Waters 2010:4). Settersten and Ray (2010) suggested that delay, particularly in the context of an economic recession, could be ultimately beneficial in terms of accumulating resources. Regardless, COVID disruptions could heighten unpredictability and extend this transition period through changes in health, education, family and relationships formation, regional mobility, youth labor markets, and general trust in the future.

How sociologists measure the transition to adulthood is also in flux. Concrete demographic markers of adulthood may be no more important than socio-emotional development and the construction of selfhood when it comes to the well-being of contemporary young adults. In a special issue of The Future of Children, Berlin et al. (2010: 4) suggested that the “social construction of adulthood seems to rely less on traditional markers (e.g. home leaving and family formation) and more on personal psychological assessments of maturity.” Hartmann and Swartz (2006:278) emphasized how adulthood “should be a journey toward happiness and fulfillment, meaning, purpose and self-actualization marked by continuous development, discovery and growth.” Drawing from the voices of young adults themselves, they determined that “people in their late twenties experience the transition to adulthood as a dynamic, multi-dimensional package of new social roles and personal attributes” (Hartmann and Swartz 2006:278).

Silva’s (2012) recent work on constructing adulthood in an age of uncertainty finds working-class young adults engaging in “therapeutic selfhood” to overcome past trauma and construct authentic selves, which more than anything ascribes meaning, order, and progress in their lives. In Silva’s (2013) book, Coming up Short, many of the traditional indicators of adulthood—leaving home, finding stable employment, getting married—are seen as inaccessible to economically disadvantaged and anxious young adults in an uncertain economy, leaving them leaning into a therapeutic model as their alternative. In an interesting parallel with Silva’s (2013:18) research, this study reveals how youth of diverse backgrounds caught off guard by the pandemic become “fluent in the language of therapeutic needs, desires, emotional suffering and growth.” This translates into a sense that self-worth and success are tied to self-transformation. Although study participants attended and graduated from four-year colleges, they share common ground with Silva’s (2013) economically disadvantaged research subjects because they emerged in uncertain times, similarly anxious, and with limited institutional support. Ultimately, they combine a therapeutic model with traditional markers of success to navigate uncertainty in distinct ways during and after the pandemic.

Qualitative research measuring social and behavioral changes in young adults during the pandemic is currently limited in content and scope and centered more in the fields of social psychology and public health. Cleofas (2021), in a study of Filipino college students, used a narrative analysis of five participants to understand life interruptions and reactions to uncertainty, work delay, and self-reflection. Fullana et al. (2020) found that young adults in the United States explored new hobbies and had increased time with family in the early stages of the pandemic. Mazumder et al. (2021) used interview and focus group methodologies to understand changes among U.S.-based young adults in health-related behavior, shifts in family relationships and friendships, lifestyle modifications (e.g., increased exercise and hygiene and disrupted sleep patterns), work/life imbalance, and fear of job loss.

Sociologists have contributed to pandemic sociology of the life course when it comes to understanding new patterns in valuing meaningful work, gendered care work, and close ties (Pickersgill 2020). For example, Cech and Hiltner (2022) found that the pandemic unsettled workers’ lives in ways that elevated nonfinancial priorities, such as meaningful work. Job instability for college-educated workers may have increased the salience of cultural narratives that emphasize good work and a good life. Umamaheswar and Tan (2020) found an inequitable division of care work obligations during the pandemic; women took on a disproportionate share of these responsibilities. In terms of social networks, Kovacs, Caplan, and King (2021) report significant decreases in the size of respondents’ acquaintance networks during COVID-19 but a strengthening of their closest ties.

These studies capture change at various moments during the pandemic and point to possible opportunities for social and group transformation during this period. Their findings resonate with this study. However, without a longitudinal qualitative approach, they cannot attend to patterns of change over time. And without an intersectional lens, it is unclear how identity and inequality are crucial components in this story of change and transformation. As Benson (2013) reminds us, the transition to adulthood is a heterogeneous experience, in the United States and globally, that includes a variety of socially precarious populations. An intersectional approach to studying age cohorts, one that attends to the many ways that power and inequality are structured differently for different groups, troubles the collective “we” of the pandemic (Benson 2013, Bowleg 2020).

College Class of 2020, Pandemic Impacts

Fifteen months of pandemic constraint in the northeastern United States, where more than half of the research participants were attending college, was characterized by the spreading of several waves of virus that led to local and national lockdown periods followed by periods of long-term confinement with limited in-person interaction. New York was considered an epicenter of COVID-19, and thus, fear and anxiety around surviving the pandemic was on the minds of many living in the Northeast, including many of my study participants. Stories of packed hospitals and refrigerator trucks storing bodies became normalized. And when colleges and universities shut down in March 2020, prior to COVID testing and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention protocols, many students had unknowingly contracted COVID and brought it home to their families.

Pew research data can give us a sense of how young 20-somethings were affected by the pandemic. First, this generation was more affected than others when it came to job losses. In a May 2020 Pew Research Center survey, half of the oldest Gen Zers (ages 18–23) reported that they or someone in their household had lost a job or taken a cut in pay due to the outbreak. This was significantly higher than the shares of Millennials (40 percent), Gen Xers (36 percent), and Baby Boomers (25 percent) who said the same (Parker and Igielnik, 2020).

Second, the pandemic changed the rules for many young adults, requiring them to live with their parents for much longer than 20-somethings of earlier generations (Halpert 2021). At the height of the pandemic, more people under 30 were living with their parents than were living on their own. The percentage of young people who returned home was even higher than in 1940, when, at the end of the Great Depression, 48 percent of young adults lived with their parents. Returning home was a dislocating experience for many and proved challenging for most (Hall and Zygmunt 2021).

For many, leaving the nest a second time was difficult. The first time they left home, it was exciting to escape high school and parental rules and move into college dorms or apartments with friends. Young adults leaving the nest a second time during the pandemic, however, were often returning to empty apartments where they worked or attended classes remotely. Additionally, their connection (Halpert 2021) to their parents was often deeper and more rooted than the first time given the extended length of stay and fear and anxiety associated with the pandemic. Inversely, for those who did not feel respected at home, including many LGBTQIA-identified young adults (Gato et al. 2021) who were forced back into the closet after coming out in college, the separation may have been more welcome.

Settersten et al. (2020) caution us not to forget the psychological consequences of the virus on this and all age cohorts. They pose questions about scarring or resilience in the face of a massive global crisis and emphasize that individual and community precarity can lead to cumulative trauma. Mental health vulnerabilities may be amplified by or tempered by experience and identity. That said, human beings are not passive victims of change but active stewards of their own well-being (Aknin, Zaki, and Dunn 2021). Some mental health experts believe COVID-19 may have spurred a generation of posttraumatic growth (Hall and Zygmunt 2021) despite inflicting so much pain. A focus on relational well-being is central to pandemic sociology, as in Thompson et al.’s (2020) work on how Canadian girls and young women individually and collectively negotiate well-being during COVID-19, how their environments and relationships influence their well-being, and how they express agency in this area.

A Pew survey taken during the height of the pandemic found that 45 percent of those under 30 described themselves being “nervous, anxious, or on edge” at least “occasionally” during the past seven days; among those 30 and older, 28 percent did so. Young adults (18–29) were the age group most likely to report high levels of psychological distress, particularly as it intersects with income, race, gender, and sexual orientation. (Rainie and Perrin, 2020). Many even described constant stress as their “new normal” (Hoyt et al. 2021; Keeter 2021). Identity factors in combination with the cumulative grief associated with losses of school-based rituals and milestones and the uncertainty of the everyday took a toll. Additionally, sleep disruptions were common (Hisler and Twenge 2021), and daytime loneliness and end-of-the-day hope were commonly reported among college students (Merolla, Otmar, and Hernandez 2021). However, bounce backs were reported in summer 2020 (between the first and second waves of the pandemic), reflecting a “psychological immune system” and possible “post-traumatic growth” (Aknin et al. 2021; Chen 2021). Demand for counseling increased tremendously, and telehealth counseling services became more accessible (Kagan 2021). Chronic stressors were most commonly experienced by women, sexual and racial minorities, and first-generation students (Gato et al. 2021; Hoyt et al. 2021; Kroshus, Hawrilenko, and Browning 2021).

Despite all of the attention on setbacks and mental health crises for young adults after COVID, this research attends to the complex and sometimes uplifting impacts of the pandemic. Settersten et al. (2020: 4) called for research in a COVID-19 context that examined “the short and long-term consequences of reducing, denying or altering the communal experience of key life course transitions.” Although research on COVID’s effects on all birth cohorts is crucial for this time, these authors point out that the effects of COVID on those transitioning to adulthood may be particularly notable given their limited experiences and accumulated resources.

Methods

As a feminist life course sociologist interested in how members of various age cohorts navigate changing socio-historical contexts, my methodological approach must be adaptable enough to capture the everyday lived experience of life transitions. Thus, this study is qualitative and longitudinal in approach. As Schwab and Syed (2015: 388) remind us, “Qualitative work can capture the richness of young adulthood, especially since this life stage is ‘rife with ambivalence.’” Additionally, “the iterative and dynamic dance” of qualitative inquiry is important to capturing changing meanings over time (Hesse-Biber and Leavy 2011). Although interviews can capture the complexity and messiness of young adulthood and identity, a longitudinal approach characterized by interviews every six months over the course of several years also helps capture change over time, especially against the backdrop of shifting historical contexts and identities (Arnett 2014; Loe 2011). Additionally qualitative longitudinal research benefits from a unique ability to check reliability and validity through “chronological triangulation,” as both participants and researchers can review and reflect on early interpretations, and correct misinterpretations (Lehmann 2024).

In December 2020, nine months into the pandemic, I started my first round of interviews. At this time, most living in the northeastern corridor of the United States were experiencing the “second wave” of COVID and the “anxiety creep” of the coming winter months indoors after a brief respite during the summer months. Many educational institutions opted for remote instruction that fall, and for those that were open, quarantine/lockdown regulations were in place. Thus, when I first met my study participants, they were either quarantining at home, in an apartment with friends, or starting a new job, sometimes in a new locale.

I recruited study participants via 50 academic contacts in diverse fields at a wide range of campuses across the country during the height of the pandemic. I asked these contacts to circulate my “call for participants” in their classes, and I also put the word out in my courses, asking students to tell their friends and ultimately making sure to only interview former students or students I had never met. Thirty-two study participants responded to this call by email and volunteered to take part in a five-year longitudinal qualitative study on young adulthood in the United States. Study participants were raised in a mix of suburban, urban, and rural contexts across North America (including Canada and the United States). As undergraduates, members of this group attended one of seven selective four-year colleges or universities, with over half in the Northeastern region and others located in Southern, Mid-Atlantic, and Western regions of the United States. Four of the seven are small liberal arts colleges, and three are research universities with graduate programs. These institutions range in undergraduate population size from 2,300 to 33,000 and in acceptance rates from 6 percent to 75 percent.

For the purpose of this study, I have focused on the voices and experiences of 20 study participants who graduated college in 2020 (roughly ages 22–23 when we first met) to focus more specifically on postgraduate pathways in work, health, and relationships (see Figure 1). The other study participants do not fit within these age parameters, and thus, their voices and experiences were not included in this focused study. Together, this sample mirrors the demographics of Generation Z in the United States: 20 percent (n = 4) identify as Latinx, 15 percent (n = 3) identify as Asian, 15% (n = 3) identify as Black, and 50% (n = 10) identify as White. They were raised in a mix of working-class, middle-class, and upper-class contexts. Twenty percent of the sample are first-generation college students. The gender makeup of the sample includes 1gender-neutral individual (preferring he/him and they/them pronouns), 3 male-identified participants (he/him), and 16 female-identified participants (she/her). They all had the option of choosing a pseudonym for this study.

Figure 1.

Participants and ethnicity.

Participants were interviewed three times during the pandemic, via Zoom, six months apart, first in December 2020, then in June 2021, and again in December 2021. (Data collection will continue to take place every six months until the study officially ends in December 2025.) Interviews ranged in time from 30 to 90 minutes. Each time, participants were asked open-ended questions or prompted about meanings they associate with transitioning into adulthood as it relates to three arenas of life: work, health, and relationships. As such, participants were given a range of themes to reflect on in advance, including body/mind/spirit, relationships, work, hope, sense of home, and age. Over the course of these three sessions, interview protocols remained the same; participants were given the same reflection prompts about age, home, and hope and were asked directly about work, health, and relationships. At the six-month mark in June 2021, in addition to my standard in-depth interview, participants were also invited to reflect on these themes in the form of a voice recording, a drawing, a journal entry, or a reflection piece. A handful of participants responded creatively to this invitation. In addition, all were asked to complete four questions ahead of our conversation, including: “What are three important changes in your life in the past 6 months?” “What are three things that have stayed the same?” “What three pandemic lessons or insights are you taking with you into the future?” and “What three things are you ready to let go of?” Answers to these four questions were discussed during the June 2021 zoom interview session.

Qualitative research requires an attentiveness to power and an ethic of care for research subjects (Reich 2021). Part of an ethic of care for this generation of study participants requires understanding the value they place on things such as safety, transparency, accessibility, and collaboration. Participants were regularly offered space within interviews to reflect on their lives outside of the focus of this study. In an effort to be transparent in my research, I kept a blog that included updated research reports and memos and invited study participants to write short pieces for the blog, submit images, or simply follow and comment when comfortable. Several submitted images they created, but for the most part, they only referenced the blog when they were curious how other study participants were reporting about their lives. Additionally, interview transcripts were shared with participants, and edits were welcomed. Many participants reported that they came to look forward to our interview “check-ins” every six months as an opportunity to pause, reflect, and share. That said, one participant joked about the “researcher effect,” sharing that she felt pressure to have a new story to report every six months.

All interviews were recorded, transcribed, and open-coded for patterns in terms of common themes. Common themes that emerged across three sets of interviews included health and lifestyle changes, self-care, personal goals and dreams, changes in the context of work, people pleasing, pathways into adulthood, hope and despair, social media use, mental health and healing, pandemic as enabling and constraining, and shifting relationships with family and friends.

Findings

In interviews, young 20-somethings defined coming of age in terms of “concrete strides” in work, housing, and personal and financial independence. They talked about dreams of moving, living in an apartment, finding a job associated with a career path, socializing, and dating. At first, when the pandemic emerged, many were forced to put all plans associated with these markers of adulthood on hold. At this time, some felt they were “regressing” into childhood. Six months to a year later, many had spent time reflecting on their lives and passions. They were now soul searching and “waking up” to new possibilities, new pandemic pathways, and new notions of personal success with a renewed sense of purpose and intentionality.

Stalling and Facing Uncertainty: “A Failure to Launch Scenario”

For college students on the verge of graduating, the year ahead was supposed to be about establishing independence. However, as Trey explains, in March 2020, “everything came to a stop.” The social script for “crossing over” into adulthood was put on hold. It was no longer possible to move out, get a job, and become a new and autonomous person during a pandemic.

I think in terms of like the ability to kind of cross over into what people would consider adulthood, so like having your first apartment or first space like independent of your parents, or having your first job, or just doing things that are different from what you did before, all this has been like stopped and slowed down for me and for a lot of my friends. [Most of us] had started to prepare and make plans for that to happen and then it didn’t happen. No fault of anyone individually; everything just came to a stop. (Trey)

Work, health, and relationships were now all assessed in a new pandemic context of risk, interruption, and delay. How could one even consider working in a pandemic when many aspects of the economy were shut down and lives were in danger? Relationships also broke down in the context of new health guidelines requiring masking, distancing, and new levels of “COVID consciousness.” Many found themselves experiencing an “endless abyss of time” that came with its own health risks, magnifying feelings of loneliness, isolation, and anxiety.

This section focuses on a common response to pandemic constraints: College graduates felt stuck when it came to the transition to adulthood, particularly when it came to work, relationships, and health. Dreams were put on hold, jobs were hard to come by, young adults were stuck in childhood homes, and a cloud of uncertainty hung over everything. Unexpectedly, young adults were stuck in limbo for over a year. That said, more than a handful of study participants picked up frontline jobs in grocery stores, restaurants, and health care, and what they experienced was astonishing and intense. This section, however, focuses on the more privileged and/or health-compromised students who were unwilling or unable to take health and career risks, thus reinforcing their feelings of stagnation.

In December 2020, recent college graduates like Trey, who were preparing to travel for prestigious postgrad fellowships, were now in a waiting game. Trey’s Fulbright experience in Indonesia was put on hold and then six months later, possibly moved to Kazikstan but still pending pandemic precautions. Trey, an Asian young man, filled his time tutoring two neighbor boys and holding out hope that this postgrad dream of his would be fulfilled. He described his time as “basically a waiting game . . . I can’t actually make any concrete strides right now.” With dreams on hold, Trey viewed “crossing over into adulthood” as next to impossible.

Similarly, in the context of global lockdowns, plans to play basketball in the Victory Scholars Program abroad (in Northern Ireland) were on hold for Marie, who is Black. Marie filled her time “trying to go with the flow in a time when everything is out of my control.” What was in her control? Prepping for the next stage of her life, which involved studying her LSAT prep book and praying that her visa would soon be approved. She still dreamed about how she would spend her time in the Victory Scholars Program, spending mornings in practice and afternoons competing and mentoring Irish youth. Six months later, she still had not received a visa.

College graduates still looking for jobs in fall 2020 were also at a standstill. Paul, who is a White 20-something, described day after day of monitoring job ads from his childhood home and the exhaustion and discouragement he felt applying for jobs with no response. He said his life, characterized by an “endless cycle of joblessness,” played out like a “failure to launch scenario” and that his dreams of working in New York City, or working at all, were now clouded in deep shame and doubt.

Similarly, Gabrielle’s plan to return to a former internship had not panned out. Now this White 20-something was living at home in a holding pattern, her boxes still packed and sitting under the ping pong table downstairs. She described her situation as stuck in uncertainty—uncertainty related to jobs, where to live, and the future leadership of her country:

Just the uncertainty of all of this, and not knowing kind of when I’ll have the answers or when I will be able to take the steps forward that I want. So, like, not knowing when I’ll have a job, not knowing when I’ll be able to move out, not knowing the results of the election [if Trump will be reelected]. Just like there’s so much uncertainty right now. And I think that just sums it up. I really like to have the answers, or to at least feel like I know when I might start to have those answers and feel like I’m moving forward in some way, and not knowing that makes it a lot easier to feel stuck here. (Gabrielle)

Even the recently employed, like Carly, Adeline, and Julia (all White young women), talked about feeling stuck and newly desperate in a context of uncertainty. Carly did not anticipate being stuck in a tiny New York City apartment “living on top of” her mother during the pandemic; nor did she imagine she would have a hard time finding a job given how hard she worked in college. But when her mom lost her job, things all of a sudden felt desperate.

I never anticipated that I would be in a situation that I’m in right now which is living at home, literally on top of my mother. Like we are living in a very very tiny New York City apartment. I have the privilege of assuming that, you know, after going to an amazing university, and graduating with high honors, and having, you know, family members who are employed and, you know, who are like really secure in their financial positions like my aunt and my uncle, I just figured that I would, you know, go right into a job. Um, so it definitely is a challenge living in a pandemic world where no one is hiring and feeling like I spent hours and months and months, searching for jobs and feeling like I was so qualified and I worked so hard to be able to get these certain positions and like going so outside of what I actually wanted to do because I was that desperate to land a job and feeling like I was compromising what I actually wanted to do, but knowing that I didn’t really have any choices; I just needed to be making money. (Carly)

Carly’s desperation to land a job and her ultimate compromises to make money were not uncommon in a context of pandemic uncertainty.

Adeline also panicked and “settled,” accepting a pharmaceutical market research job she did not really want after looking for jobs for eight months. The ups and downs of job searching led to deep feelings of inadequacy and health scares. As she came to believe everyone else had a job, the negative voice in her head got louder, saying “You blew it,” or “You should have gone with a different plan of study,” or “You should network more.” She described having two panic attacks in the course of her job search in the face of all of the uncertainty around her. She had been seeing a therapist since high school, but after graduating from college, “It was like falling off a resource cliff. Now I had to pay for therapy, and I couldn’t manage that financially.” Ultimately, financial desperation, stress, lack of health care coverage, and general uncertainty led her to take a job she did not want.

For Julia, work was the least of her concerns. She was starting her career in engineering with a great first job (fully remote). But what kept her up at night, literally, was her dad’s recent job loss, fear of spreading COVID to her parents (who were in their 60s), an emerging awareness that her college friends were not “real” friends (a commonly reported experience among young adults wondering if their friends really have their backs), a general hopelessness in the news, and a sinking feeling that she was part of the problem. She described all of these factors as continual “waves of impending doom” that led to difficulty sleeping and a sense of stuckness. In December 2020, Julia reported, “Ever since I’ve come home and COVID started, I have not slept a full night through. Now I wake up at least twice in the middle of the night, if not more.” By June 2021, the “impending doom” feeling had lessened, but stress at work was building, and Julia still was not sleeping through the night.

Similarly, Jess, a Black 20-something, took a lucrative job in finance that came with her own apartment but still felt lost. Although these were markers of success that she appreciated—especially because it meant having a place of her own for the first time in her life and not having to care for her younger siblings—she reported feeling “utterly lost” in her life. She felt like nobody prepared her for the transition “between college and real life.” And as a result, she felt deeply pressured and unsettled in this transition period.

College, while it prepared me for some things, like, you know, being able to talk to people and more educational things, there’s so many things that adults just kind of do, and like your parents have always done, that they don’t even really necessarily let you in on that stuff. So I’m not gonna lie. I want to say “Okay, yeah I’m a young adult,” but I just honestly feel lost. Like every single thing that you do within this time frame just feels so big. Every single move and decision—there’s so much weight and pressure—it’s just kind of like uncomfortable. So I’m in such a state of discomfort. And work is always kind of like ongoing—you don’t really know when to like turn off the work—and there is zero separation between work and life. It’s different, and nobody really talks about it. I just don’t feel secure. (Jess)

In this section, we see the various ways in which Trey, Marie, Paul, Gabrielle, Carly, Julia, and Jess make sense of stalling out in the transition to adulthood. Instead of following a prepandemic plan or social script for success, most fell into an unexpected cycle of doubt, despair, and even desperation. These cycles left them feeling stuck, and this took a toll on their health and relationships. For some, being stuck at home also led to feelings of moving backward in the transition to adulthood or regressing back to adolescence. The next section focuses on young adults navigating locational, financial, and emotional dependency on parents, something that felt like a giant step backward in the context of expected “adulting.” Instead of becoming independent, many felt they were actively doing the opposite. As such, traditional markers of adulthood no longer seemed achievable (at least in the near term), and this new understanding left them feeling shame, guilt, and heightened anxiety.

Pandemic Reversion and In-betweens: “I Regressed to My High School Self”

Much has been written about young adults returning home after graduating from college, otherwise known as boomeranging (Waters et al 2011). Before the pandemic, this was not uncommon. However, for many of the young adults I spoke with, returning home was not part of their plan in 2020 and certainly not for over a year (Hall et al 2021). Thus, a common pandemic pathway was the unexpected return home and feelings of regressing to one’s childhood self, still somewhat dependent on parents. These feelings of dependency were particularly amplified in a context of unemployment or not feeling safe or respected in the family home.

For example, Laura, a White 20-something, expected to be in New York City after she graduated. Instead, she was back in her childhood bedroom, very aware that she had psychologically reverted back to her high school self, where mom was in charge of the meals and she was sleeping in her childhood bedroom. The feelings of self-sufficiency she experienced in college were hard to access in a context of pandemic anxiety and uncertainty. With a loss of autonomy, Laura felt like she was taking steps backward in her life.

Up until August, during quarantine, this felt very much felt like extended adolescence. Like I reverted to high school. I was going back and living with my parents. My room is still painted bright orange from like elementary school. We never repainted because I didn’t think I’d be back living in that room again. It’s just like a time capsule of me when I was like 10 years old. So yeah I would say it fluctuates, but now it feels more like an extended adolescence. . . . And when I feel like I’m reverting back to my childhood, it feels hard to wrangle it back in. (Laura)

Six months later, Laura was finally moving out but having a hard time leaving her parents. It was clear to her then that over the pandemic year, she had grown dependent on family and more “rooted” in her childhood home than she had anticipated, a common circumstance for many leaving the nest a second time (Halpert 2021).

In December 2020, Gabrielle described her unexpected life situation this way: “I’m a very grown child living at home, with parents.” For her, this meant not only feeling like she was reverting to childhood but also reentering a family minefield in terms of political perspectives during a high-stress election year. When we talked in December, she was whispering into her phone while sequestered in her childhood bedroom, worried that her father would overhear her conversation. Loss of privacy and independence was, to her, a clear sign of reversion back to childhood.

Paul acknowledged that returning home after college could have been a normal state of affairs, to save money, for example. But for him, his return to home happened “by default,” and it did not feel right because he was not “doing things that adults do,” such as paying his own bills. He explained, “My failure to launch feeling is partly because I’m still dependent; like I had to, you know, ask for money from my parents to go grocery shopping, and that makes me feel guilty.” Being in his early 20s and not having a regular paycheck to cover household groceries felt wrong and embarrassing to Paul, even in the context of a pandemic. Financial dependency was not a situation he had prepared for.

Additionally, not having friends “within a 5-10-25 mile radius” was difficult for Paul in terms of feeling a sense of isolation and emotional dependence on parents and family members. All of this was taking a toll on his health and sense of confidence. In December 2021, he reported, “I feel like a different person . . . much less confident than I was at school. And I have struggled more mental health-wise than I have in my entire life, and that hasn’t been pretty.” Paul felt like a child—dependent on parents for money, food, shelter, and even his social life—and all of this was taking a major toll on his health.

Once they had secured jobs, Sumita, Abby, and Aliyah saw the pandemic year as less about reversion and more about feeling in-between their teen and adult selves. Sumita, a South Asian young woman who was living in an apartment with friends, summed up this in-between stage when she said, “I feel like I have slightly more adult problems now, but I definitely still call my mom. That’s what it feels like to be in your early twenties.”

Abby, a White 20-something, was hoping to have a job, her own apartment, and a social life that involved going out most weekends. Instead, she had a “big girl” job as a nursing tech but was living in her childhood bedroom and limited in her social life due to the pandemic. Abby seemed unsure whether to hold herself responsible for these disjunctures in her life plan versus pandemic reality.

It’s like I’m a kid literally living in my childhood room, but also an adult. Like, I don’t need to tell [my parents] I’m going out. I have a quote unquote big girl job, and I’m living in my childhood bedroom. It’s just like a weird in-between phase. I don’t like feel like I’m adult because I feel like you’re supposed to have your shit kind of more together. (Abby)

The in-betweenness of being financially independent but dependent on parents for housing was unsettling for many. For Aliyah, a Latinx 20-something, never actually receiving a college diploma in a ceremonial setting and her inability to find a full-time job with benefits intensified these unsettled feelings.

I feel like it’s definitely a transition to adulthood for me. Like I don’t feel there yet. And I think it’s mainly because I’m still living with my parents. So I got out of college and I’m still living with my parents, and also the fact that it didn’t have the graduation was kind of interesting because it made me feel like I almost like didn’t really graduate. You know, it’s just a weird feeling because maybe if I would have done the graduation, and then kind of gone along with the how the plan was supposed to be, like me getting like more of like a job with benefits then I would have been able to move out. I would have felt like “Oh yeah finally like I’m a young adult.” But I still kind of feel like I’m transitioning. (Aliyah)

Aliyah was living with her aging parents in Queens, in a COVID epicenter, and working as a temp in a local hospital. She talked about how the everyday anxiety of living with aging parents, working without benefits, and living in an epicenter would affect her body. “My heart rate would speed up and beat a lot faster than usual, and I didn’t know how to calm it.” For her, like Adeline, Paul, and others, not being able to manage her health was yet another factor that limited her ability to feel independent and responsible for herself.

Even with a job in a neighborhood grocery store that helped to pay the family bills, Miranda was forced back into the closet as a lesbian Latinx woman living in a homophobic family context. In December 2020, Miranda reported that while she lived at home and enjoyed bonding with her new nephew, she was preparing for graduate school and learning to no longer rely on her parents. “I’m busy learning the Ps and Q’s of independence.” By June, Miranda was no longer living at home, having escaped a “severely dysfunctional family context.” Although she had bravely come out to her grandmother during the pandemic and received her blessings (“perhaps one of the best moments of my life”), her father had gone back to telling her to “stop fucking up her life” and to find a suitable man, and her relationship with her mother was “unstable.” Miranda’s pandemic return to home had ultimately been a move backward in family relationships, one that led to extreme stress and anxiety and exacerbated her chronic health conditions.

Similarly, Jaden, a Latinx nonbinary 20-something, returned to a home he did not feel comfortable in, and this return to “toxicity” was a form of regression that took a toll on his health and well-being. In December, Jaden was appreciating this period of soul searching, but he was frustrated with his home situation and his lack of autonomy, coming from a college context where he was able to live on his own and feel more of a sense of control over his life.

I went to college for so many reasons, but leaving home was one of them, being away from a certain toxicity. Now, I’m back here and it is a real challenge to feel comfortable in this place, where my step-dad and I don’t talk at all. And I don’t have any sense of control at all. At the end of the day, if I wanted to put something up on my wall, I’d have to go ask someone for permission. (Jaden)

Six months later, Jaden admitted to the toll the year had taken. He was now feeling almost imprisoned in his room in a household that did not feel like home. He also knew more about what he needed to feel healthy and independent.

I’ve been stuck, honestly, for a little over a year. I stay in this room all day every day. I literally like I would be here on my desk working, and then I would like swivel then onto my bed, or I’d stay at my desk literally the entire day. So that was really rough especially for, like, I like to move around, I like to, you know, interact with people, just sort of like in-person. So, um, it took a toll on my mental health. (Jaden)

In the worst days of the pandemic, Jaden felt imprisoned in his room, Gabrielle was hiding in her room, Sumita was calling her mom, Aliyah’s heart was speeding up in a way she could not control, Miranda was feeling triggered and unsafe in her family home, and Paul, Abby, and Laura were caught in cycles of doubt and shame, feeling at least partially responsible for their childhood regression. For most of the young adults in my study, feeling stuck and/or regressing is part of their pandemic experience. And these experiences may have been amplified by identity factors, such as sexual orientation, race, and socioeconomic status.

And yet, stagnation and/or regression is not the whole story. Although the pandemic itself was an inflection point, or a socio-historical event that impacted all of their lives, each study participant responded to this global crisis in their own way. Stalling and reversion in a COVID context led to unexpected pivots, or intentional “concrete strides” in new and unforeseen directions—such as health, relationships, and work. In the following, conversations with Jaden, Aliyah, and Carly reflect how each pivoted during the pandemic. These pivots were opportunities to redefine and rescript transitions to adulthood and thus, notions of personal success. In other words, as traditional markers of young adulthood were out of reach (e.g., financial independence, separation from parents, and marriage), emotional growth was now front and center as a new and aspirational marker associated with coming of age.

Pandemic Pivots: “Soul Searching” and New Intentionalities

In June 2021, Jaden sent me a list of changes in his life and a request that he urgently wanted to talk to me. Things were changing, and he wanted to fill me in. On the day we talked, Jaden was filled with exhilaration. He had recently quit his remote job, took a risk on a new relationship, and was about to leave his family home and fly to Florida that afternoon. Far from the Jaden I spoke with in December who felt trapped, this Jaden was busy “hustling” and capitalizing on new possibilities.

I found this person who has been really good for me in the last six months. She has sort of become my person, you know? I have a whole new support network. So now I’m ready to leave my house and take a leap. It is finally like, we’re doing this, we can go farther, we can, you know, make this into a thing. So I’m applying to a whole bunch jobs, and things are really coming together and pulling me to Miami. (Jaden)

Many circumstances led to this life pivot, including a new relationship (a pull factor) and exhaustion with current circumstances (a push factor), but after Jaden contracted COVID-19 in April and then pushed through weeks of sickness and fogginess, his life priorities seemed clearer. As Jaden says, “I had all these issues with like working from home and just like sort of being trapped, and then I got COVID and it just sort of compounded everything.” A little over one month later, Jaden was in action mode.

Jaden’s narrative contains many forms of unexpected but increasingly common pandemic pivots. In a pandemic context, he engaged in soul searching and then reprioritized aspects of his life. As the pandemic waned, he took risks in work and relationships, embraced his key sources of support, and let go of “toxic” elements. Jaden became intentional about his life trajectory. He also was able to embrace a level of uncertainty in order to take new risks. Many factors led to this new level of intentionality, but there is no doubt that COVID-19 played a crucial role for him and for others.

Intentionality about confronting toxicity in one’s life was a common theme for the young adults I spoke with, and it resonates with research on young adults confronting illness (Joyce et al. 2020). For many, the need for healthy and supportive relationships in a time of fear and uncertainty led to a type of unique and intensified life review process. By the end of the pandemic, Jaden and Miranda had left their toxic home environments and distanced themselves from problematic family relationships. Similarly, Jess, Adeline, Aliyah, and Carly “released” themselves from toxic friends and lovers who were no longer serving them.

For example, in our conversations in December and June, Aliyah referred to a long-term former toxic relationship that had taken a toll on her health. COVID-19 and living in the epicenter in Queens, New York, with mortality reminders all around her, made Aliyah look closely at her priorities and detox her life.

During this COVID thing [my ex] definitely leaned on me a lot, but then I was like “No I can’t do that.” COVID enabled me to just let go of like a lot of toxic things in my life. I was fighting it for so long because I was sticking with what felt comfortable, and then I think COVID hit and everything just felt uncomfortable. And then I was like, why am I going to spend my whole life living this way, knowing that I’m unhappy deep down, or just lying to myself? I could be dead tomorrow. I only have so many days so I might as well just to try to really enjoy it. (Aliyah)

For the first time, Aliyah learned to be honest with herself and to prioritize her health above all else. From this change in perspective came a stronger support system and deeper friendships, a willingness to take risks and date again, and a new deep awareness of her body and her health. Aliyah spent the early months of the pandemic feeling trapped in a body she did not understand. Her heart was racing, her mind was filled with doubts, and for much of her life, she was filled with anxiety. But with intentionality around health, she was able to listen and respond to her body. When her heart sped up and she experienced anxiety, she now knew that she could “breathe it out” through yoga or meditation or hold a palm stone to calm herself.

Aliyah talked me through how she moved from feeling stuck in her head all the time, in a cycle of doubt, to putting her thoughts in perspective and letting her anxiety go:

In your head, everything feels so real. Like, my thoughts are like my own insecurities or fears. They’re just thoughts. I really had to come to terms with this because I always had anxious thoughts but I hadn’t really confronted them until everything that happened with a pandemic, like with the fear of death and everything. When I confront them I see it is more likely that they’re not real, so why am I giving them so much power? I’ve learned how to cope with my thoughts a lot more. I write things down—like the thoughts that I’m having. And then I go through them and like try to find a way to like understand them. And then I see, like, no, this is not gonna happen. (Aliyah)

Aliyah’s newfound “maturity” emerged in the context of pandemic stress and health uncertainty. She moved from panic to a new proactive mode focused on self-compassion and acceptance. Prioritizing health meant moving away from toxicity, living in her truths (not her lies), and learning how to heal herself.

Self-healing was also a theme for Carly. As a person with type 1 diabetes with a host of chronic health conditions, Carly had always depended on her friendship network to get her through her anxiousness. But she began to experience social relationships differently in the context of the pandemic. Interactions became dangerous, a source of anxiety rather than a salve. Her mother kept her from seeing her grandmother and going to the gym, and anxiety associated with not being careful enough or friends not being COVID conscientious almost became too much.

Sometime after our conversation in December, Carly decided to live on her own in her aunt’s house for six months, away from her friends and her parents. When we talked six months later, she was back in the tiny New York City apartment with her mother but with a new approach and a financial cushion. She had enrolled in graduate school to become a mental health therapist. And for the first time in her life, at 24, she was prioritizing social time and dating, even sometimes over work, knowing how many social opportunities she missed during the pandemic. She had a long health checklist and took that very seriously. She wallpapered and decorated her room to create a sanctuary for herself, where she could be calm. And perhaps most importantly, she now identified as an entrepreneur. She started a jewelry business based on her love of beading and began to support herself financially.

Much like Jaden, COVID-related contexts led Carly to do some soul searching and realign her life priorities. She never imagined she would have the time to think and plan, but when COVID arrived, she took advantage of the opportunity to “figure out how to be.”

I would always say like it’s just so frustrating that the second I finished high school, I’m gonna go to college, and after college, I’m gonna get a job and I was like when am I ever going to have a break? I literally had been thinking to myself, like I’ve never just had a chunk of time to figure out how to be. And now [during the pandemic] I have that time to reflect and think! I go outside every day and take a walk. I climb up on this big rock in Central Park with my computer. No one is up there and it is so nice. (Carly)

Looking more in-depth at narratives from Jaden, Aliyah, and Carly, we can see pandemic pivots in process. These pivots were catalyzed by many factors, including a deepening awareness of their own mortality in the COVID context. Outcomes included life planning, attending to health, and building social and financial support systems for themselves. Taking time to reflect resulted in a new intentionality for all of them, as Diana describes:

This is a stage of hardcore discovery. You know what I mean? Especially right now, like being 22 and having just graduated, I think it’s a very freeing experience, if you want to look at it that way. I think it can also be like very anxiety-inducing because for the first time ever in our lives like you don’t have a next step . . . I feel like it is the first time you’re like, truly confronted with yourself, which I think is really scary for a lot of people. I think was scary for me at the start of [COVID], but then I don’t know, I feel like it can also be really exciting . . . I guess the challenge from this point forward is putting yourself at the forefront of your actions. (Diana)

In the following section, I report how the members of the Class of 2020 reflected on their own self-discovery during the pandemic year. For example, Milan has learned to be more vulnerable with friends and loved ones, and this has led to personal growth as a young Black man who struggles with living alone and working in the South in a career field (finance) and a society shaped by structural racism and White power.

I’ve grown more in terms of being vulnerable with people and letting my emotions show, not like uncontrollably but just like voicing, you know what I believe or what I feel emotionally. And I think a lot of people are going through that. I think a lot of people are able to be more vulnerable now because everybody knows that everybody’s going through something right now and I think just, it’s a pandemic. Like people are losing their jobs. People are dying. Um, and so I think people are becoming more and more accepting of vulnerability and listening to people and things like that without judgment. So I think I’ve grown a lot even like in the past like a year because of that. (Milan)

For Marta, a White woman, COVID circumstances have pushed her out of a me-centered space into a more caring approach to others. Having lost her mother recently, she is now helping her family cope and grieve and friends who have lost their loved ones. Through this care work, she has decided to study to become a grief counselor.

COVID and the quarantine and everything has made me I guess, a little more responsible right now . . . just having to force me to think about other people. Because I think usually around this time in your life, you’re really just think mostly thinking about yourself. And also just, I like going out and everything. So that’s something I’ve had to change. And probably for the best. (Marta)

Many have spent the pandemic period reflecting on and attending to their mental health, something they may not have prioritized in college. As Diana, a Latinx young woman, says, she has “never in her life thought about health this much.” This new attention to health has led Diana, Miranda, and Sumita, all women of color, to be more attentive to their bodies in terms of daily movement and eating and to create new healthy routines that have enabled deeper connections with community members, friends, and loved ones. For example, Diana, partly out of concern for her parents’ health, initiated a regular evening walking routine with her family. Miranda, recently diagnosed with Celiac’s disease, started a fitness page online and benefitted from the community that emerged. And once Sumita started to reflect on gaining weight in college, she created new routines with friends to walk the local parkway (while socially distanced) and eat well.

All of the quotes in this section are about reflecting on and accepting levels of uncertainty when it comes to health, mortality, and racism. Adeline, K, and Trey struggled with their propensity for control and perfectionism. For Adeline, lessons in embracing uncertainty were especially meaningful because of her deep personal need for control, something she reflected on quite a bit during the pandemic. Ultimately, it was through letting go of control that Adeline “compromised” on a job and starting dating a friend. The latter, she now thinks, was a particularly healthy move, especially following a former toxic relationship. Similarly, K, who is Asian, is working on letting go of her perfectionist and work-centered tendencies, especially when it comes to her lifestyle and relationship with her boyfriend. And for Trey, there was liberation in not having concrete answers when so much is unknown.

I was always someone who needed to be in control. I’ve always had issues with control in my life. But now I’m letting go of control and seeing what happens, and maybe that is good to some extent. Like, in this past year, I have slid into a relationship with a good friend that I didn’t anticipate, and that has been good for me. But I also landed in a job that isn’t me at all. . . . So there has to be a happy medium between letting go and being intentional, and I’m trying to find it. (Adeline)

I think I’m starting to realize that I am very much a perfectionist—more than I thought I was. I used to think I’m just practical, but the more that I’ve worked in a professional setting, I think I’ve actually come to realize my perfectionistic tendencies. One of the ways that manifests, I think, is I have very particular and very high standards for lots of aspects of my life, and I feel like maybe letting go of some of that . . . I think just like recognizing times where it’s okay to say okay, I’m fine with this standard. Like, there are valid reasons for why you could sleep in on the weekends. So it’s like, noticing, and then, okay, that’s fine. (K)

I’ve been in this very liminal period that honestly a lot of people don’t get because you kind of feel like there’s a pipeline from undergrad to the next thing. This is a period that a lot of people I think frown upon, because it’s like “Oh if you can’t get a job right after college like what have you done wrong?” But instead I think I’ve come to see it as, it’s good to be in this space right now of the unknown. . . . While it’s definitely uncomfortable and it’s hard to answer, like what I might do next, it’s also nice to kind of be like alright, well, I don’t have to make any sort of concrete decision right now. And that’s okay. (Trey)

Together, the narrative responses in this section reveal young adults who associate the pandemic period with a new sense of personal growth and intentionality moving forward. As financial independence and separation from family is more elusive and mental health is a new and important aspect of living, intentionality regarding health and well-being becomes a crucial marker for success. Specifically, study participants discuss coming to value personal vulnerability; perspective; attentiveness to health, family, and relationships; and greater acceptance of uncertainty. In COVID times, all study participants have been forced to pause—to put aspects of their lives on hold. However, in the context of pausing and perhaps “by default” de-prioritizing central “markers of adulthood,” most, if not all, have become more attentive to the importance of their socio-emotional health and well-being and perhaps more intentional in planning their life trajectory. As Skylar says, “Usually I like going out, but this time has been about growing into myself; going inward.” In other words, without the ability to do so, many have unexpectedly focused their attention on being. The result has been growing and “deepening” in unanticipated ways on the path to adulthood.

Conclusion: Pandemic Pathways to Adulthood

There’s such a societal rush to go to the next thing . . . as opposed to thinking about life as kind of like a convoluted journey that’s gonna bring you backwards as much as it might bring you forwards, and experiencing different things along the way. . . . That’s kind of how I see the trajectory, I guess, of coming of age. It’s being willing to do all of that, again and again. (Trey)

Pandemic pathways are characterized by three unexpected and intersecting realities, stuckness, moving backward, and pivoting, and in the process, becoming more intentional about self, health, relationships, and life planning in general. The end result is a rescripting of adulthood: the valorization of a mature adult self that is reflective, open to uncertainty, and intentional regarding health and well-being. These young adults are now asking whether attentiveness to health and well-being could be just as important as external markers of success and whether the former could better prepare one for making important decisions and transitions across the life course.

A small longitudinal qualitative study can be useful in testing whether our sociological ideas about the transition to adulthood resonate in real life. This group of 20 diverse young adults did indeed experience extended transitions, delays, and even zig-zags on the road to adulthood, as our theorists anticipate, especially when the success of this transition to adulthood is measured by familial and economic markers such as financial independence, leaving home, creating a family, and so on (Settersten and Ray 2010; Waters et al. 2011). That said, dramatic social change surrounding the pandemic pushed everyone to attend to health and well-being, a key aspect of life that may have been missing from our existing conceptual frameworks about important life transitions. Thus, although contemporary theory on the social construction of adulthood anticipates increased emphasis on “personal psychological assessments of maturity,” it does not anticipate the socio-emotional developmental milestones these young diverse 20-somethings experienced during the COVID-19 pandemic and its aftermath, specifically, how they experienced pausing, reflecting, and pivoting in real time. And yet, there are some important parallels here with Silva’s (2013) research on working-class youth who lean on therapeutic measures of success in their aspirational tool kit for adulthood when achieving traditional markers of success are not possible, much as college graduates have done during and after the pandemic.

Initially, for the Class of 2020, their collegiate lives came to a crashing halt, and most plans to establish their independence were newly blocked. A few graduates, generally those with fewer resources and/or less support at home, boldly applied for jobs in new locations during lockdown or were hired as frontline laborers, but the vast majority returned home to live with parents and participated in an uncertain and extended waiting period. Much like in the wake of disasters like Katrina and the Depression, this forced pause and interruption was a significant setback, but for many, this has also enabled them in terms of testing and strengthening relationships, building self-knowledge, and adaptability and intentionality. In the process, pathways to adulthood may have been altered along with definitions of personal success. We can learn much from this generation when it comes to their newfound attentiveness to well-being and relationships, to intentionality in work and self-care, and in their overall transparency about mental health.

It is important to keep in mind that this sample is made up of graduates from selective four-year colleges. This cohort, even prior to the pandemic, was not graduating into a robust, booming economy with good paying jobs. The pandemic made this reality visible and exacerbated existing inequalities. That said, this group carries a level of social capital and socioeconomic privilege that others in their age cohort do not have, even if they come from mixed racial and middle- and working-class backgrounds. Thus, although some study participants worked on the frontlines during the pandemic, most who did, did so temporarily and are now entering graduate studies in social work and/or nursing or working their way up the ladder in health care. As such, they have left their age peers in frontline work behind to pursue a specific career track.

Although privilege is woven through these pandemic pathways, an intersectional lens is central to understanding the complexity within these narratives. If the pandemic has proven anything, it is that social inequalities exist and that they matter. As such, pandemic pathways are gendered, sexualized, classed, and racialized. For example, attentiveness to health and well-being is gendered, classed, and racialized; this is reinforced most explicitly in our society with women and particularly White women with resources, who have learned that they can trust institutions of health and medicine perhaps more than women of color. And yet in this study, we can see women of color, nonbinary individuals, and men of all backgrounds pivoting to claim for themselves, likely for the first time, health-based knowledge and self-care.

Above all, participants in this study remind us that a pandemic sociology of the life course must attend to the complex aspects of adulting that are undervalued in our society. Attentiveness to health and self-care is on this list, as is intentionality in building supportive relationships and openness to uncertainty. Although colleges mean to set students up for success in life by providing ample social and health opportunities, their emphasis is on job market preparations first and foremost (Jay 2012). Thus, it takes a major intervention in the status quo to turn societal attention, and thus the attention of young adults, to health, well-being, and the value of interdependency. Pandemic fear and health surveillance coupled with job market “pauses” have led many college graduates to follow the zig-zags of pandemic pathways to adulthood and thus learn and practice a new and crucial skill set for coming of age. As vaccinations continue and communities open up, 20-somethings are entering the world with perspective, experience with uncertainty, and new forms of intentionality. That said, they are also entering into work, higher education, and relationships with mental health concerns, and federal and work policy should be proactively attentive to this. Immediate health policy implications include mental health expansion and accessibility, now more crucial than ever, to confront and address past and future hardship for this generation in flux.

In the opening quote, Kelly reminds us that her generation of “postgrads” are different from other generations because they experienced an extra level of hardship when it came to entering career paths. There was more delay, more stress, more “stuck”-ness and more “gambling” on jobs than usual. And yet, her hope is that “if it is harder now, maybe the future will be a breeze.” Could it be that the Class of 2020 not only experienced extra hardship but also built new forms of self-awareness, resilience, and intentionality, key skill sets for the future? This research reveals an age cohort newly attentive to these areas of inward growth. That said, will these lessons be forgotten or buried in the postpandemic period as the “societal rush” Trey refers to above resumes? A longitudinal lens will bear this out over time.