Graduating College & Moving States in 2020 (Amidst a Global Pandemic)
The end of college is generally a season of uncertainty, filled with figuring out post-graduation plans, what life after college looks like, and other components of a “quarter-life crisis”. I was in the midst of this when COVID-19 started, spread, and erupted.
At first, while COVID-19 hadn’t reached the US, it was just a conversation topic. When it arrived in Washington and New York, it became a background worry. For me and probably all other University of Utah students, there was a jarringly defined point when COVID-19 began to directly affect our lives. During spring break, it was announced that the rest of the semester would be online and campus housing would start to be shut down. After this it seemed like regular life started to disappear, bit by bit. Friends moved away abruptly, many of which I didn’t know when I would see again, my housing became uncertain, and a heightened sense of dread and anxiety seemed inescapable. Throughout my last year of college, and especially during the last semester when COVID-19 hit, I was heavily preoccupied with deciding between graduate school or working after graduating. During spring break I was visiting the University of Chicago as a prospective Computer Science Ph.D. student, making all the COVID-19 changes that I returned to seem even more drastic. Worries around panic-buying, social isolation, and the healthcare system piled on top of many personal uncertainties I was already grappling with.
As time passed, I settled into new, quarantine-friendly habits and did my best to upkeep my mental health and responsibilities. Finishing coursework and publishing my thesis required exponentially more self-discipline. Things still seemed numbly surreal in the worst way possible, but eventually I accepted that on a global scale, life would not return to normal anytime soon and perhaps never be the same as pre-pandemic.
Amidst this blur of coping, I graduated.
At this point I had checked out of academics almost entirely and was just happy that schoolwork would no longer be a stressor. It didn’t really register that I had graduated and overall felt like an incredibly lackluster way to pass a notable life milestone. I was however, overwhelmed with gratitude that my post-graduation opportunities had no fallen through. At this point I had decided to work for a year and re-apply to graduate school later in 2020. I would start working as a software engineer for Facebook in June.
My job offer from Facebook is at their headquarter offices in California, so I had to move from Utah to California after graduation.
Logistics of work were ambiguous, as offices had been shut down and employees had been working remotely since COVID-19 hit California. Things got even more ambiguous when Facebook announced that they were moving towards permanent remote work for a substantial portion of employees. I know of a few new hires that have somewhat indefinitely committed to remote work by deciding to not move to areas near offices, but I decided it was still worth it to move. On May 22, 2020 I began my drive from Salt Lake City to Menlo Park. I was fairly antsy about driving such a long distance alone but made the best of it by thinking of it as a road trip and planning an overnight stop in South Lake Tahoe.
What struck me the most throughout the road trip was the difference in COVID-19 restrictions and attitudes across various regions. In Elko, Nevada the restaurant I stopped to get takeout from had a dining room that was well over half-full of maskless diners. In contrast, when I arrived in South Lake Tahoe I was required to provide proof of essential travel to even be allowed to stay at my hotel and was also warned that police had been questioning pedestrians and performing daily checks to ensure hotels only contained essential travelers. My next stop in Sacramento took me past a rally protesting COVID-19 restrictions at the California State Capitol.
I arrived in Menlo Park and have since settled into temporary, relocation housing. I spent half of my childhood in the Bay Area, so I’m feeling an interesting mix of nostalgia and novelty in acclimating to life here. I’m very grateful I’m still able to start work despite all the economic chaos of the pandemic and feel anxiously excited for what the rest of this year will bring.
