Photo: Bryan Anselm 

Sherry Heidary teaches a chemistry class at Union County College. On this day, she encourages one student to believe in herself. She then gently chides a latecomer who didn’t turn in an assignment. 

The lesson behind the lesson: They all belong. There in the lab, there at Union County College, there on the path to a degree. It’s an urgent message for community colleges everywhere as they struggle to fill classes after a shocking nationwide enrollment plunge in the fall that educators blame on the coronavirus crisis and economic and social upheaval.

Companies hire thousands of business-school graduates every year only to spend months catching them up in the specific demands and skills of the job.

Now some of the biggest professional-services firms are changing tack to ensure their new-graduate hires are ready from the start or their existing employees have the skills to move onto bigger roles: They are customizing their own graduate-degree programs with training in company-tailored skill sets and real-time project work in lieu of traditional case studies.

Photo: Dylan Wilson

What defines a generation? War? Recession? If big events become part of our life stories, how does a pandemic affect those who are just coming of age? 

To find out, journalists followed a group of 21-year-olds from around the world to understand how this period in time is altering their lives and how they are coping.