In late 2019, when Mechem Frashier, Diné, heard about a virulent coronavirus spreading in the city of Wuhan, China, she paid attention. She knew from her decades-long career as a nurse that viruses like this don’t respect borders and that soon it could be in the United States. She was right. 

You know the saying: when life hands you lemons, make lemonade. There’s no question that the COVID-19 pandemic has given today’s students a lapful of lemons. Chances are you’re now dealing with unanticipated challenges — and that’s on top of stresses about the health and safety of your family and your community. It’s a good guess that financial worries lead the list. When the familiar world changes suddenly, those who survive and thrive are the ones who learn to pivot and adapt. Here are some strategies for adapting — and making lemonade out of the economic crisis.

It’s a sad reality. Hackers around the globe continuously threaten the computer networks and personal information that individuals, companies, and governments rely on not only to do business but also to deliver everything from health care to the basic water and energy services a functioning society depends on. 

Growing up, Denise LeBeau Bois felt it best to downplay her Native heritage because of reactions she received early in her school life. She also felt judged for being from a divorced family, her mom of Western European ancestry and her father, Cheyenne River Lakota (Sioux). As a result, she had the sense that most people outside her family did not expect her to amount to much. 

As a young boy, JJ Jones III loved building. He spent hours playing with Legos and k’nex and never tired of creating something new and different. What started as a young boy’s passion has become a young man’s goal. Now in his third year at Dartmouth College in Hanover, N.H., Jones, Navajo, is majoring in mechanical engineering and minoring in Native American historical studies with plans to become a mechanical engineer, helping to keep his community — and nation — safe. 

When Rita Rabbitskin was a little girl, bush planes were the primary link between her Cree community in Northern Quebec and the outside world. She watched the skies with fascination, dreaming of one day flying herself. “That was the world I wanted to be part of,” Rabbitskin says. “I used to go see the pilots and crews that worked back home, learning what my options would be. The initial dream was to be a bush pilot.”

Julia Blue Bird is curious about a lot of things. She has earned three master’s degrees, one in electrical engineering from the University of Southern Florida and two from Columbia University in philosophy and astronomy and in astrophysics. But these days her curiosity is focused on galaxy evolution over cosmic time as she completes her PhD in astrophysics at Columbia.