After graduating from Florida Atlantic University last fall, Alexandria Thomas packed her bags in December, eager to begin her career in New York City. But just months into her new life, she’s now contemplating yet another move.

The coronavirus pandemic is stopping graduates right in their tracks, as internships and fellowships get canceled and job prospects dry up. With unemployment skyrocketing and few career opportunities available, many of these grads are moving back in with their parents — or deciding not to move out at all.

“I know that I’m here [in NYC] for April for sure and more than likely going to be here for May,” Thomas said. “But if this goes on into the summer and beyond, it makes me wonder what my future is going to look like here in New York. I never got the chance to establish myself and get my footing.”

The 21-year-old aspiring actor landed several theatre-related opportunities alongside a part-time catering gig that were all supposed to start mid-March. Her catering job is currently on unpaid leave and her shows are canceled. Now, she says she is virtually jobless, making cash here and there through online tutoring. “March was supposed to be the month when everything was coming together, but it totally got washed away,” Thomas said.

According to the National Center for Education Statistics, the employment rate for students who complete a bachelor’s degree or higher is 86%. But with a hiring freeze across many industries, young graduates fear going months or longer without full-time jobs. Stanley Danzey, 24, and Karlyn Sykes, 22, are among them.

Sykes, a spring 2019 graduate, received an eight-month advertising fellowship with the potential to receive a full-time offer come May. Danzey, a fall 2019 graduate, accepted an internship with CNN and planned on staying with the company at the end of his term.

Both of them are living with their parents for the time being. The same thing played out during the 2008 recession, when thousands of young people facing unemployment or underemployment ended up moving home.

“We’re kind of caught in limbo right now,” said Sykes, who is still renting her apartment in New York City. “I’ve been thriving for a year in this fellowship, working across all these different agencies. I had a job promised to me if I worked hard enough for the past seven months, and now that we’ve come to the finish line, a third of the jobs might be in jeopardy. I feel like I’m back in my final semester of college all over again.”

Danzey and Sykes are still receiving income from their respective companies, but say they’re missing out on learning vital in-person skills. “At the end of this, I’m going to come out better financially,” Danzey said. “But there’s nothing better than experience.”

“It was tough,” Danzey said. “You feel like you’ve gotten to a point where you’ve accomplished a certain goal and to literally — within the span of 24 hours — have everything reversed on you is really hard.”

According to the results of the Class of 2019 Student Survey from the National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE), “more than half of all graduating seniors who applied for a full-time job — 53.2% — received at least one job offer. Within this group, 57.5% of students who had an internship and 43.7% of graduating seniors who did not have an internship received a job offer.”

The novel coronavirus is changing the upward career trajectory these graduates thought they were on. Young people on the verge of starting their adult lives are finding themselves stuck in their childhood bedrooms, forced by shelter-at-home orders to literally remain in place.