Emerging from COVID-19: Student Involvement in Campus Activities and Young People's Success, Sense of Belonging, Health, and Well-being - 2021 Research Grant

The COVID-19 pandemic disrupted young people’s academic, personal, and social lives in unprecedented ways at critical transitions to adulthood. For many, this disruption has had negative impacts on student academic achievement and physical and mental health and wellbeing. For those finishing high school and applying to college, the impacts were particularly acute. Ample evidence indicates that over the last two years the pandemic’s impacts and reverberations have been widespread and significant for adolescents, touching their learning, well-being, and psychosocial development. For young peoples’ education, the pandemic forced new ways of learning, disrupted routines and significant milestones, and prevented motivating and important daily interactions with peers and school staff.

As these adolescents enter and progress through college, they must navigate potentially new education and career trajectories amid an unexpectedly different world and with lasting reverberations on their mental and physical health and academics. The transition guardrails that have historically been relied upon to promote academic and social integration into college (Tinto, 1993), such as summer preview days and orientation are also disrupted, causing concern about how transitions might be especially difficult as the pandemic continues to evolve. Therefore, it is important to understand how young people’s experiences of COVID-19—and its challenges and lessons—will relate to their transition to and time in college.