Emerging Adults’ Journeys out of the Shutdown: Longitudinal Narrative Patterns in a College Career Defined by COVID

The COVID-19 pandemic has defined the college career for this generation of learners, threatening mental health, identity development, and college functioning. We began tracking the impacts of this pandemic for 633 first-year college students from four US universities (M age = 18.8 years) in Spring 2020 and followed students to Spring 2023. Students provided narratives about the impacts of COVID and reports of mental health concerns, identity development, well-being. Students reported concerns for mental health, identity, and well-being during the first year of COVID impacts. The return to in-person activities predicted broad increases in narrative growth and concomitant decreases in COVID stressors, increases in identity exploration and commitment and increases in psychological and academic well-being. Changes in COVID stressors and narrative growth served as mediators between the return to in-person activities around campus and student outcomes. Findings expand insights of development and mental health across much of this generation-defining event.