College students are lost voices in COVID-19 storm. Here’s what we want you to know
College-aged young people are not the most vulnerable demographic for COVID-19. We don’t make up the largest portion of deaths or hospitalizations, and we don’t want to claim to be the people being hit the hardest. We aren’t.
Mass unemployment is hurting everybody, and the devastating impacts of the illness itself on people are second to nothing else right now in the world. There’s no stress or inconvenience that matches the loss of human life.
It’s also important to note that the people on the frontlines of maintaining a functioning society — healthcare workers, delivery drivers, grocery store employees, food service workers, etc. — deserve the most recognition for their role in supporting society through the pandemic.
But we college students really want people to know what we’re going through, too.
From the perspective of a college senior, I am now dreading graduating. What I was looking forward to with joy, and excitedly planning celebrations for, now feels like a ticking time bomb before I am forced to figure out a “Plan B.”
It seems everything has been flipped upside down. My degree is wrapping up in just two short months, and there are now so many unknowns about what I’m going to do once I graduate.
The transition from college to workforce is daunting enough, but now trying to navigate that while the entire US economy is on pause is even scarier.
Companies are furloughing their entire workforce to stay afloat, so how are we supposed to find jobs as recent college graduates when even people with experience and seniority can’t hold down their positions?
For many students, internships taking place right now were going to be critical add-ons to resumes for competitive post-grad job prospects. Now, they are equipped with even less as they enter the “real world.”
A majority of college seniors won’t even be able to formally celebrate the accomplishment they have worked for over 16 years of schooling as commencements are canceled left and right.
Greek life activities, athletics and other recreation activities that are so important to the college experience are being canceled. Not to mention that the transition to online learning has been significantly more of a challenge than most people realize.
Students have had to travel back to their hometowns, leaving jobs behind. Some can find relief in the form of a $1,200 check from the Families First Coronavirus Response Act, but many cannot because their parents still claim them as a dependent for tax purposes.
This is true for so many college students who are in the gray area between being under their parents’ wing and being independent in the adult world.
They may support themselves completely, but that is not recognized under this bill. Now, they struggle to make ends meet.
College students notoriously have financial struggles, and now with the added stress of losing jobs, moving and still having to juggle all of their normal financial responsibilities, it’s fraying the already fragile mental health of the young adult population.
Once-in-a-lifetime opportunities to study abroad have floated away. We’re watching friends and families lose jobs, get sick, even die. We’re separated from our social lives and support systems.
We’re getting ready to jump into a post-grad economy that is ten times tougher than it has been for graduating classes before us. And all the while, we’re still told to care about cellular respiration, art history or accounting.
We’re still getting emails about upcoming tuition bills due, as well.
In the middle of a global crisis, we are, like everyone else, struggling to remain mentally afloat every day. The last thing we can bring ourselves to care about is writing research essays. Nothing feels more irrelevant and pointless right now.
All the while, we feel completely powerless. We don’t have the financial means to help people, and we feel so much guilt over hating our situation because there are always people who have it worse.
We’re sick of hearing that our generation is “entitled,” so we just bottle it up and count our blessings.
We’re hurting, and we don’t even feel like we’re allowed to say that we are.
Meghan Rand graduates this spring from the University of Washington Tacoma with a BA in politics, philosophy and economics. Rand, who grew up in Lacey and graduated from Timberline High School, originally wrote this piece for UWT’s student newspaper, The Tacoma Ledger, for which she works as an opinion editor.