grads_Covid-Era Tech Grads从父母的家中开始工作

By Shelly Banjo, Priya Anand and Olivia Carville

雪莉·班卓(Shelly Banjo)，普里亚·安南(Priya Anand)和奥利维亚·卡维尔(Olivia Carville)

Eric Lee has dreamed of working for Microsoft Corp. for as long as he can remember, and was stoked this spring to land a job at the tech giant right out of college. But instead of traveling across the country to start his career at Microsoft headquarters in Redmond, Wash., Lee joined the workforce this month from his family’s house in the suburbs of Boston.

埃里克·李(Eric Lee)梦想着一直在微软公司工作，直到他回想起，并于今年春天被迫在大学刚毕业时就职于这家科技巨头。 但是，Lee没去美国各地旅行，而是在华盛顿州雷德蒙市的微软总部开始他的职业生涯，而是于本月从家人在波士顿郊区的房子里加入了工作队伍。

The arrangement has its comforts. Every hour Lee’s mom brings him a different type of cut-up fruit, then usually noodles for lunch. But he feels disconnected from his new colleagues in a way he wouldn’t if they were sharing an office. When Lee gets stuck on a tricky line of code, he sends a message asking for advice, then tries to figure it out himself. If that fails, he passes the time until he gets a response by watching videos on TikTok. Sometimes it takes hours. “I’m afraid of asking dumb questions or intruding when they are AFK, away from keyboard,” Lee says. “So I just wait.”

该安排有其舒适感。 李的妈妈每个小时都会给他带来一种不同类型的切水果，然后通常是面条吃午餐。 但是他觉得自己和新同事之间的联系很疏离，就好像他们共享一个办公室一样。 当Lee被困在棘手的代码行上时，他发送一条消息以寻求建议，然后自己尝试解决。 如果失败，他会花时间直到通过在TikTok上观看视频得到回应。 有时需要几个小时。 “我害怕在离开键盘时会问一些愚蠢的问题或闯入AFK，” Lee说。 “所以我就等。”

The feeling of being forced to wait is common for students who graduated college this year. Until March, things were moving fast for them. Most were born around 1998, too young to have memories of the dot-com bust or anything but the vaguest recollections of the 2008 financial crash. They’ve spent their entire lives plugged into smartphones, and many have seen a career in tech — rather than in medicine or law — as the highest marker of success. And tech had been booming.

对于今年毕业的学生来说，被迫等待的感觉很普遍。 直到三月，事情对他们来说发展很快。 他们中的大多数人出生于1998年左右，年纪太小，无法回忆起互联网泡沫破灭，或者除了2008年金融危机以来最模糊的回忆之外，没有其他记忆。 他们一生都将智能手机用于智能手机，许多人认为从事技术领域(而非医学或法律领域)是成功的最高标志。 科技一直在蓬勃发展。

But the economy was slowing even before the Covid-19 pandemic hit the U.S., and the last five months have been devastating. The upheaval can be seen in industries such as technology, and the approximately 200 students who graduated this spring from the computer science program at the University of Illinois Urbana–Champaign, one of the top 10 engineering schools in the country. Lee is one of its so-called Class of Covid, those students who finished their studies just as the pandemic was gripping the country.

但是，甚至在Covid-19大流行袭击美国之前，经济就开始放缓，并且过去五个月一直是灾难性的。 在诸如技术这样的行业中可以看到剧变，大约200名学生于今年Spring从伊利诺伊大学厄本那-香槟分校的计算机科学专业毕业，该校是美国十大工程学院之一。 Lee是其所谓的Covid班之一，那些在大流行席卷全国的时候完成学业的学生。

Graduates from the program’s 2019 class earned an average starting salary of $108,000. Over 97% of graduates reported having full-time work or enrolling in graduate school within six months, according to the school. The pandemic had an immediate impact on this year’s graduates. Some students who had gotten job offers from companies like Uber Technologies Inc. and International Business Machines Corp. had them rescinded or lost their jobs soon after starting. Others were told their start dates were being delayed by months. Those who have gotten jobs, like Lee, begin their careers in a weird state of limbo.

该计划2019届毕业生的平均起薪为108,000美元 。 根据学校的统计，超过97％的毕业生表示在六个月内有全职工作或就读研究生院。 大流行对今年的毕业生产生了直接影响。 一些从Uber Technologies Inc.和International Business Machines Corp.等公司获得工作机会的学生在开学后不久就被撤职或失业。 其他人被告知他们的开始日期被推迟了几个月。 那些像Lee一样找到工作的人，在奇怪的困境中开始了自己的职业生涯。

These travails are mild compared to the havoc that Covid-19 has wreaked on less advantaged workers. The tech industry was the best-performing sector of the economy before the pandemic, and large tech companies are not facing the existential threats of, say, airlines or retail chains. Computer science graduates, some of the most sought-after workers in the country, will be better off than those in other fields. But the Class of Covid graduates are likely to have a harder time than students who graduated just one or two years earlier, and their personal experiences provide a window into the post-pandemic economy.

与Covid-19对低收入工人造成的破坏相比，这些苦难是温和的。 科技行业是大流行之前表现最好的经济部门，大型科技公司没有面临航空公司或零售连锁店等生存威胁。 计算机科学专业的毕业生将是美国最受追捧的工人，他们的状况将比其他领域的毕业生要好。 但是Covid班的毕业生可能比一两年前毕业的学生要困难得多，他们的个人经历为大流行后经济提供了一个窗口。

Graduation day at UIUC felt hollow. The university cancelled its in-person commencement ceremony, and administrators rushed to cobble together a virtual replacement. Lee slept through it. Caren Zeng, who lives near San Francisco, tried to make the most of the situation. She ordered a cap and gown and posed for photos in her backyard, the California redwoods in the background a reminder that she wasn’t actually in Illinois. Her family crammed into the living room to watch the 30-minute prerecorded event. Zeng’s name flashed across the screen for a few seconds. “It just didn’t ring true at all,” she says. “I feel like the moment was kind of robbed from us and there’s no real replacement for it.” This week, she’s starting a job at Alphabet Inc.’s Google. Technically the job is located at the company’s New York office, not its headquarters in nearby Mountain View. But the distinction doesn’t much matter for now, since Zeng is doing it from home.

UIUC的毕业那天感到空虚。 该大学取消了当面的开学典礼，管理人员急于拼凑一个虚拟的替代者。 李睡了。 居住在旧金山附近的Caren Zeng试图充分利用这种情况。 她订购了一件长袍和长袍，并在她的后院摆好姿势拍照，背景是加利福尼亚的红杉，提醒着她实际上不在伊利诺伊州。 她的家人挤在客厅里观看30分钟的预录事件。 曾梵​​志的名字在屏幕上闪烁了几秒钟。 她说：“这根本不符合事实。” “我觉得这一刻被我们抢走了，没有真正的替代品。” 本周，她开始在Alphabet Inc.的Google工作。 从技术上讲，该职位位于公司的纽约办事处，而不是位于附近山景城的总部。 但是，由于Zeng是在家中进行的，因此区别目前并不重要。

Surabhi Sonali, like Lee, started a career at Microsoft from her parents’ home this month. Sonali spent her first morning on the job rearranging her bedroom furniture so its bright pink walls and teddy bears wouldn’t show up in the background of her video calls. “I want to set up my laptop so people see the least amount of the girly decor all around my room,” she says. Sonali has less control over the sounds of her brother and sister playing Xbox in the bedroom next door.

Surabhi Sonali和Lee一样，本月从父母的家中开始了在微软的职业生涯。 索纳利(Sonali)在工作中度过了第一天的早晨，重新整理了她的卧室家具，这样明亮的粉红色墙壁和泰迪熊就不会出现在视频通话的背景中。 她说：“我想设置我的笔记本电脑，以使人们看到我房间周围的少女装饰最少。” Sonali对哥哥和妹妹在隔壁卧室玩Xbox的声音的控制较少。

While Sonali is saving money on rent, avoiding daily commutes and sometimes working in pajamas, any novelty has already worn thin. She interned at Microsoft three times before getting hired, and remembers how much easier it was when she could just walk up to someone’s desk to ask a question. “It’s 100% weird to start a full-time job at my parent’s house,” Sonali says. “This is the most anti-climactic life transition ever.”

当Sonali省钱省租金，避免日常通勤甚至有时穿着睡衣工作时，任何新奇事物都已不复存在。 在被录用之前，她曾在Microsoft实习过3次，并记得当初可以步行到某人的办公桌问一个问题要容易得多。 Sonali说：“在我父母的家中开始全职工作是100％的怪异。” “这是有史以来最抗气候的生活转变。”

Working from home can be a trying experience for people at all stages of their careers, but the challenges for new graduates are unique, says Joseph Altonji, a professor of economics at Yale University. It is harder to cultivate mentors through a screen than at lunches and happy hours. “This is different for people just entering the workforce who don’t have a lot of prior experience,” says Altonji. “They’ve literally never set foot in the company office building and not met their boss in person, not met their coworkers in person.”

耶鲁大学经济学教授约瑟夫·奥尔顿吉(Joseph Altonji)表示，在家工作对于各个职业阶段的人们来说都是一种尝试性的经历，但是新毕业生面临的挑战是独特的。 通过屏幕来培养导师比在午餐和欢乐时光要难得多。 “对于刚进入劳动力市场但没有很多经验的人来说，情况就不同了，” Altonji说。 “他们从没涉足过公司办公大楼，也没有亲自见过老板，也没有亲自见过同事。”

The impacts may be long-lasting. Altonji co-authored a study that found that workers graduating during the 2008 financial crisis had earnings as much as 10% lower in their first year working than they would have otherwise. The initial setbacks were often permanent. He expects to see a similar dynamic with this year’s graduates. It will take longer for many people to find work. The weak labor market will cause some people to take jobs that are less relevant to their academic backgrounds. Once employed, new graduates who begin work remotely are likely to take more time picking up both technical and soft skills, says Altonji.

影响可能是长期的。 奥尔顿吉(Altonji)合着的一项研究发现，在2008年金融危机期间应届毕业生，其第一年工作的收入比其他情况低了10％。 最初的挫折通常是永久性的。 他希望今年的毕业生会看到类似的变化。 许多人需要更长的时间才能找到工作。 疲软的劳动力市场将导致一些人从事与其学历不相关的工作。 Altonji说，一旦被雇用，远程开始工作的新毕业生很可能会花费更多的时间来学习技术和软技能。

A Microsoft spokesperson said the company is aware that bringing young employees into the workforce remotely isn’t ideal. It is working on various ways to improve the experiences of working from home, like giving managers specific training on how to manage remote workers, and how to aid employees in times of crisis.

微软发言人表示，该公司意识到将年轻员工远程带入劳动力市场并不理想。 它正在以各种方式来改善在家工作的经验，例如为管理人员提供有关如何管理远程工作人员以及在危机时期如何帮助员工的专门培训。

UIUC’s administration has also been contemplating whether it needs to take a more active role supporting its graduates, says Nancy Amato, head of its computer science department. Because most graduates have thrived professionally, she says, alumni services in the past have consisted of checking in to keep track of where they ended up. “We don’t really offer to support them,” says Amato. “And I think we need to, because right now they’re kind of in between.”

UIUC的计算机科学系主任Nancy Amato说，UIUC的管理人员也一直在考虑是否需要采取更加积极的行动来支持其毕业生。 她说，由于大多数毕业生都在专业上蒸蒸日上，因此过去的校友服务包括签到以跟踪他们的结业情况。 “我们真的没有提供支持他们，”阿马托说。 “而且我认为我们需要这样做，因为现在它们介于两者之间。”

Some UIUC grads are still searching for jobs. Alan Jin grew up in Wenzhou, China, and moved to New York with his family when he was in high school because his parents thought it would increase his chances of getting into a top engineering college. Jin fell in love with virtual reality and computer vision. “I thought, if I just studied CS and went to a good school, I’d easily be able to find a job making a lot of money,” he says.

一些UIUC的毕业生仍在寻找工作。 艾伦·金(Alan Jin)在中国温州长大，高中时随家人移居纽约，因为他的父母认为这会增加他进入顶尖工程学院的机会。 Jin爱上了虚拟现实和计算机视觉。 他说：“我认为，如果我只是学习CS并读了一所好学校，我很容易就能找到一份赚很多钱的工作。”

After applying to a few dozen companies during the school year, Jin landed an internship at a high frequency trading firm in Chicago that he hoped would turn into a full-time job. Jin is crashing at his aunt and uncle’s house, where the Wi-Fi isn’t the best. Online team-building events don’t seem like effective ways to build relationships that could increase his chance of landing a permanent position. At one recent virtual event, Jin and other employees tie-dyed t-shirts while chatting on Zoom. “It’s cool, I guess, but I don’t think I’ll wear it,” Jin says, holding up the shirt he made. “Mostly, I work a lot and don’t talk to anyone. It still feels kind of weird.”

在学年期间申请了几十家公司后，Jin在芝加哥的一家高频交易公司实习，他希望这能成为一份全职工作。 Jin在他的姑姑和叔叔家崩溃，那里的Wi-Fi并不是最好的。 在线团队建设活动似乎并不是建立关系的有效方法，这种关系可以增加他获得永久职位的机会。 在最近的一次虚拟活动中，Jin和其他员工在Zoom上聊天时扎染了T恤。 “很酷，我想，但我不认为我会穿它，”金说着，举起了他制作的衬衫。 “通常，我工作很多，不与任何人交谈。 感觉还是很奇怪。”

Jin has become pessimistic enough about his chances at his current firm that he’s begun applying for jobs again. He hopes to land a job with a prominent California tech company. “No one seems to be hiring,” he says, lamenting his bad timing. “If only I had graduated earlier.”

Jin对自己目前在公司的机会已经变得非常悲观，以至于他再次开始求职。 他希望在加利福尼亚一家著名的科技公司找到一份工作。 “似乎没人在招聘，”他感叹自己的糟糕时机。 “如果我早些毕业的话。”