Posted Monday October, 5th 2020

Making Sense of Life in the Middle of the Storm

We are now many months into the disruptions and upheaval that the COVID-19 pandemic has introduced. The events of this year have upended many young adults' lives, disrupting their work and educational opportunities, threatening the health and safety of their loved ones, and depriving them of opportunities to build and maintain close bonds with peers and even romantic partners. This has been a hard, hard time for an entire generation.

Given these major threats, researchers and policymakers have been worried about the short- and long-term impacts of COVID-19. I have been working alongside colleagues across multiple colleges in the U.S. to address ways disruptions to the college experience in spring 2020 initially impacted students and will continue to shape ongoing well-being and functioning for college adults.

I have been working alongside colleagues with expertise in psychological research and the study of life stories, including Robyn Fivush (Emory University; who has provided a concurrent blog post on this topic), Andrea Follmer Greenhoot (University of Kansas), Monisha Pasupathi and Cecilia Wainryb (University of Utah), and Kate McLean (Western Washington University). Together, we have been considering the ways 633 first-year students across our universities reflect on the major disruptions of COVID and how they report on other areas of psychological health.

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