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Rescinded Offers, Dashed Dreams for Wisconsin College Students

Associated Press

   MADISON, WISCONSIN - The Class of 2020 may as well be dubbed the Class
   of COVID-19.

   Graduating seniors said an abrupt and socially distanced goodbye to
   their campuses in March when classes moved online in a matter of days.
   The pandemic stripped much of the pomp andall ofthe in-person options
   from commencement ceremonies. And the graduates now enter a job market
   in which unemployment is the highest since the Great Depression.

   Here is how the coronavirus altered seven students' futures, according
   to the Wisconsin State Journal:

   Emily Gray, 23

   Hometown: Mount Horeb

   Major: Paralegal studies

   Emily Gray needed 140 hours of internship experience to graduate from
   Madison Area Technical College's paralegal program. She had accumulated
   just 40 of those hours when the spread of COVID-19 led to the Community
   Immigration Law Center's closure.

   Panic immediately set in that she would not receive her diploma this
   May. But instructors were "wildly accommodating" with makeup work, Gray
   said.

   The job search began in the winter. Gray doesn't remember how many
   applications she submitted, but it was enough to feel good about her
   chances of landing a job shortly after graduation. She fielded several
   calls from firms and was in the early stage of setting up interviews
   when the coronavirus arrived. Companies' interest ground to a halt.

   Gray wants to work in immigration law, but she may temporarily set that
   interest aside and consider other areas of the law that may see a surge
   in work as the economy recovers, such as workers' compensation.

   She's also broadening the geography of her search. Gray graduated from
   the University of Minnesota last spring and would love to return to the
   TwinCities, butis now considering jobs in Madison and elsewhere in the
   Midwest.

   Gray has put her job search on hold -- she can only hear "Sorry, we're
   just not hiring right now" so many times -- and plans to start applying
   again when positions pop back up.

   When the immigration center where she interned opens again, she said
   leaders would welcome her back as a volunteer to gain the experience
   she lost out on this semester.

   "Everything's sort of in limbo," she said.

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