College Students Found Help in Personal Pandemic Stories

Nov. 28, 2022 – The COVID-19 pandemic was hard on everyone, especially during the early months of the lockdown. But college students had particularly high stress levels, with mental health effects that have remained in some people even 2 years later.   

During spring semester of 2020, many college students had to go home and live with their families – “which was a big adjustment after being more autonomous – deal with remote instruction, figure out plans such as summer internships, worry about their health and the health of others,” all at a critical time when teens and young adults are “gaining independence, developing a central identity, and figuring out where they fit into the world,” says Jordan Booker, PhD, an assistant professor of psychological sciences at the University of Missouri.

Olivia McKenzie is an example. Now 23 and working as a paralegal in New York City, she was a sophomore at the University of Michigan when the pandemic struck.

“We were sent home because of COVID, and I did my classes and coursework online,” she says. “College was awesome for me because I like being around friends and in the company of many people, so being at home and away from my friends wasn’t good for me or for my mental health.”

Over 600 first-year college students were asked to write about the impact of the pandemic on them in response to a computerized questionnaire with narrative prompts. 

The researchers expected the crisis to be short. But as the pandemic continued, it became clear that, unlike shorter events (like natural disasters), the pandemic never had a “clean break,” signaling its end. So the researchers followed these students for a year to see if they could detect themes in their narratives that might predict their adjustment to the issues posed by COVID-19 and the return to campus.

McKenzie says the pandemic “forced me to grow because there were all sorts of emotions I wasn’t used to dealing with full-on when I was distracted by being with friends or going to classes.”

She’s learned from the pandemic. “I think there was a lot I took for granted instead of feeling gratitude. Now, it’s way easier for me to look back and be grateful or intentional about how I spend my time, seeing people, or being able to go outdoors, which I couldn’t do during the freezing winter in Michigan.”

Another long-term area of growth has been self-care. “The pandemic caused me to be in tune with myself, perhaps in more ways than I would be at this stage in my life if I hadn’t gone through that.”

She also has learned to value spending time alone and is more “intentional” about whom she spends her time with. 

But there were downsides. “Anxiety in particular is a lingering effect – unsureness about general things and being a lot more sensitive to news and world events, because you never know what might happen next,” she says. “I see this not only with me, but with my peers as well. There’s more harsh reality in our lives now, a sense of unease in my generation. Nothing will ever be the same.” 

Sharing Stories

McKenzie didn’t directly describe her perceptions of the pandemic in writing during the lockdown, although she was a creative writing student and taking two writing classes. But “how the pandemic was influencing me as a human being got woven into my writing in other ways.”

She kept a journal and talked about common experiences with friends. “I found a job in a restaurant, which felt like my saving grace during the pandemic because it was an excuse to leave the house,” she says. “For over a year, we were fully masked and limited to outdoor seating, but still quite busy. We exchanged a lot of stories in that space.”

Sharing stories of common stressors and coping helped forge a “different kind of friendship” with fellow waitstaff and created a “sense of community and comradery during a time when ordinary ways of communing with others were discouraged.”