The current economic conditions could take this year’s grads 10 years or more to recover from. “There’s no way for there to be closure,” says Sam Nelson, who recently graduated with a journalism degree from the University of Missouri. (Yes, this one is a must*). In 2020, there are over three billion smartphone users around the world, and 77% of Americans own one. I have bought a few books from you in the past and they have beeMagical and brought tears of happiness and sentiment to my beautiful family. The class of 2020 made history in more than one way. But the events that rupture the classroom routine, from President Kennedy’s assassination to 9/11, tend to be the ones that stick with students forever. Stars are honoring the graduating class of 2020! Even though we didn’t get a chance to walk across a stage flaunting our diploma and smiling for a picture our parents attempted to take while they wiped away their tears, we still get to experience things that no other generation has. Notable American political figures who have tested positive for the coronavirus. Only then, often after years of delays, do they start making the professional progress that for many older or younger graduates commenced right out of college. But, first things first: congratulations! Other movies released in 1998 include "The Truman Show," which was ahead of its time with its story about the growing popularity of reality television. REUTERS/Megan Jelinger. Graduating into a bad economy can affect everything from future earnings to long-term health and happiness. To a large extent, they aren’t in control of their own fate. Fraternities and sororities canceled their formals and philanthropy events, attempting Zoom happy hours that didn’t come close to the real thing. But that presents its own conundrum. He said Gen Z's influence is just starting to be recognized. These books will be passed on to each generation giving the younger generation knowledge about their heritage. But when he applied for a position at a local grocery store, he didn’t get it. But when he applied for a position at a local grocery store, he didn’t get it. REUTERS/Lucy Nicholson, West Point graduating cadets throw their hats in the air in celebration as U.S. Army helicopters fly overhead at the culmination of their 2020 United States Military Academy Graduation Ceremony attended by President Donald Trump at West Point, New...more, Student Laila Lacy, 17, wears a mortar board with the message "Young, Black & Educated" at a drive-thru graduation ceremony at University High School in Los Angeles, California, June 12, 2020. They call it commencement because it’s supposed to be a new beginning. Others quietly packed up their feelings for college crushes and left without saying a word. Graduating right now is a particular form of bad luck, but those who finished school and joined the workforce in recent years aren’t lucky either. Researchers have shown that the economic scars of graduating into a recession—sustained higher rates of unemployment (for high-school graduates) and lower earnings (for everyone) compared with peers graduating as little as a year or two earlier or later—can last for as long as 10 or 15 years. Some Democrats say the COVID-19 pandemic calls for a similar approach. But this year’s graduates are staggering into a world that is in some ways unrecognizable. The virus and the economic shock waves it unleashed have hammered Americans of all ages. When interviewing members of the class of 2020 over the past month as they looked for jobs, I feared that I was witnessing the beginning of this damaging chain of events. (Jayden's last name has been omitted to protect her privacy.). You will definitely gain valuable knowledge, and even more, if it is in a field you would like to be involved with in the future. The cause for worry is the record of previous graduates who stumbled into an inhospitable economic climate. “It’s not easy to admit that we need things when we’re supposed to be at this point of independence.” That’s another sad consequence of the class of 2020’s terrible luck: They have already internalized some of their struggles as personal failings, even if rationally they know they’ve done nothing wrong. According to the Pew Research Center, members of Gen Z were born in 1997 or later. Two months later, Robertson’s transition to adulthood is in limbo. REUTERS/Mike Segar, A student waits for a photo at a drive-thru graduation ceremony at University High School in Los Angeles, California, June 12, 2020. Joe Pinsker. That was also the same year Vanessa Carlton released "A Thousand Miles," and that Avril Lavigne said "see you later, boy" to a "Sk8er Boi. REUTERS/Brian Snyder, High school graduating student Kiara Hernandez poses in front of the TCL Chinese theatre which is closed in Los Angeles, May 18. With the pandemic changing everything, many students have come to terms with graduation being delayed. “It’s like suspended animation.”. The possibility of a 10-to-15-year period of diminished labor-market prospects applies regardless of education level, but “lower-educated workers tend to have larger initial losses and a slower recovery,” von Wachter said. “Now there’s a depression.”. Job searches in education, public relations, and creative industries, meanwhile, tend not to start in earnest until the spring semester, which this year was when the pandemic hit. “You feel like a failure to launch.”. “If I didn’t apply to graduate school in the first place, I do not know what I would be doing” now, she told me. Thank you. They are the most -racially diverse generation in U.S. history. Many graduating seniors are not so lucky, and are trying to figure out what, if anything, they can do to improve their lot. For seniors, it was a total upheaval. REUTERS/Bing Guan, A graduating masters student from the Columbia University Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation (GSAPP) stands on campus the day before his graduation ceremony, which is to be held online, in Manhattan, May 15. Now, with classes canceled and his job search on ice, his copy of The Great Influenza is on his childhood bookshelf, alongside his old high school copies of The Crucible and Of Mice and Men. Acquaintances who laughed in hallways or shared inside jokes in seminars simply disappeared. “I don’t want to work [in fast food] forever, but I also don’t want to quit there if I don’t have a more career-based job,” she told me. “Your heart breaks a little. The amount of long-term harm that the current conditions will do to new workers depends on if, when, and how quickly the economy bounces back. Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts has called for a “Coronavirus Containment Corps,” to expand the public-health workforce and employ an army of contact-tracers to help fight the spread of the virus. It didn’t have to be this way.]. You made it! since. (Less than a third of older Republicans agree.). She and her family held a small ceremony in her grandfather’s backyard, and then she stood on the sidewalk in her cap and gown waving at cars with a sign that said “Honk, I did it!” Brenda Sanchez, 22, whose parents are immigrants from Mexico, says they will miss both her graduation from Humboldt State University in California and her sister’s college graduation the next day. At least, in the middle of this uncertain period, here are 5 things that you should be 100% certain of are: So, dear class of 2020, let’s go find our passion and create our new normal!