Previous generations of newly minted graduates have faced rough job markets. But few have done so while also reeling from the widespread loss of positions they had already been promised.

Many recent graduates are having opportunities and positions suddenly revoked -- including research jobs, slots at graduate programs and work in the nonprofit sector.

The current administration’s deep cuts, ideological shifts and tariffs have affected the economy, higher education, and the arts and nonprofit sectors in ways that are shutting out recent graduates and forcing pivots in their post-graduation plans.

”There’s a lot of uncertainty that is impacting the job market,” said Norma Guerra Gaier, associate vice chancellor for career development and education at Washington University. “We’re seeing some hesitation in employers’ approach to recruiting and investing in early talent.”

The administration has cut more than 135,000 jobs in the federal workforce, with another 149,000 cuts planned, according to the New York Times.

Graduates looking for mission-driven roles in public service can no longer count on pathways such as fellowships and agency-specific pipelines, many of which have been defunded or frozen.

The cuts have also affected students looking to enter STEM and research fields and those with artistic ambitions. In addition to billions of dollars in federal research funding, the administration has cut millions in grants to the National Endowment for the Arts. The National Institutes of Health has cut 2,100 research grants valued at more than $12 billion since Donald Trump took office, according to NIH employees.

The consulting and technology sectors have also been hit hard.

Guerra Gaier said she has seen some employers retract job offers or postpone the start date by several months to see what happens with the market. At a recent conference for the National Association of Colleges and Employers, the current market dominated the conversation.

“We haven’t seen this level of uncertainty and trepidation before,” she said. In previous dips, such as in 2009, the reasons for the situation -- and the path toward recovery -- were both more clear.

“Today, something is on and off the next day,” she said. “It’s just a whole new ballgame.”

However, there are steps students and recent graduates can take to improve their chances.

“It’s a tough time, but it’s not an impossible time,” Guerra Gaier said. She advises students to think about backup plans early in the game.

Broaden the list of roles, companies and organizations you are considering, she advises. Hone in and focus on your capabilities: the skills and attributes you bring to the table. Demonstrate, with concrete examples, that you have the skills and capacity to contribute to an organization.

“It’s not about your major, it’s about the competencies you bring,” she said.

Early experiential learning opportunities are more critical than ever. She suggests looking into sites such as Forage, a free online platform that provides virtual job simulations and career exploration experiences at leading companies. Students and grads can also search for microinternships on sites such as Parker Dewey.

Any short-term, project-based opportunities for students to engage with companies, helping solve problems, will help graduates stand out from the competition, she said.

Additionally, having a strong network is more critical than it’s ever been. This means looking within your own circles and asking them who they might know and be able to connect you with in your desired areas of employment.

“Tell anyone and everyone your career aspirations,” she said. “You never know who they might know who could help you.”

Use LinkedIn to create a strong profile and leverage connections. Work on being able to tell a compelling story about your skills.

“We all have a story, and we need to be more comfortable and confident about sharing that story,” she added.

Accept that nothing in life is predictable and that change is part of life.

Lastly, always be ready to pivot.

The surest signs of marital stability in my childhood home were my mother’s cooking and my father’s appetite.

They had an arranged marriage -- meeting and speaking to one another for the first time on their wedding day. For the past 52 years of marriage, food has been their most fluent love language.

My parents share an authentic Pakistani palate, while ours grew more Americanized over the years. Most Sunday mornings, my mom made rose-pink Kashmiri chai with flaky puff pastries that resembled the bakarkhani they enjoyed growing up. While my mom cooked traditional meals for us, my dad would get us breakfast sandwiches from McDonald’s or take us out for pizza as a treat.

We internalized the message that feeding someone is an act of love, and that eating involves more than getting sustenance. It’s a way of showing affection, giving respect, sharing joy and connecting with people and memories. These ideas are ingrained in our culture. In Asian households, we greet family with the question: Have you eaten?

So, even though my father has spent the past two months going from the hospital to inpatient rehab to a skilled nursing facility, my mom has been the guardian of his meals and snacks. She’s kept a close eye on whether he finishes his protein shakes or if he needs more homemade food brought to him.

She usually spends several hours with him every day at the skilled nursing facility.

That abruptly changed recently when my mom contracted pneumonia, which landed her in the hospital for three days. Her doctors told her she needed time to recover and instructed her to stop going to the nursing facility for at least a week.

Prior to this, she had been bringing my father his lunch and dinner every day. Her absence may have provoked a decline in his appetite. Even when my siblings took food to him -- food that my mom had prepared -- he only ate a few bites.

Last week, my mom told me that my dad hasn’t felt like eating much lately. She said the side effects of some of his medications have altered the taste of certain foods, creating a sour flavor. I could tell it upset her.

Hearing this affected me more than I expected.

My father has endured many indignities and pains over the past few years as his Parkinson’s has worsened. We still don’t know whether he will be able to come home anytime soon. He needs to regain some of the strength and stamina he’s lost from being mostly bed-bound.

But how will he get stronger if he isn’t eating enough?

I discovered a body of research on how to encourage eating and increase appetite for elderly folks whose eating habits have changed. Experts say to offer nutrient-dense foods, and to find ways to make mealtimes more enjoyable.

Last year, I got in an argument with my father because I said he was eating too many desserts and too much sugar. I told him it would only worsen his health issues. He did not appreciate his daughter telling him what he should or should not eat.

Now, I feel like offering him whatever dessert he wants.

I inherited my love of food from my father. I wonder if we’ve lost that connection. I’ve already felt like I’ve been losing him slowly, piece by piece, over the past five years. First, our phone calls dwindled. Then, our in-person conversations changed. His moods became more unpredictable. In the past few months, he’s lost his mobility.

I don’t want him to lose the pleasure that comes from eating foods he has enjoyed his entire life.

The day my mom was discharged from the hospital, she made sure my sister took one of my father's favorite sandwiches to him. Exactly one week later, she was back at his bedside -- homemade meals in hand.

Her food is love.

When our children were young, many of our vacations involved piling into our Prius and driving 750 miles to visit my family in Texas. Our fancier trips took us to theme parks or beaches in Florida or national parks in the West.

I didn’t grow up in a family that took vacations -- not the weeklong getaway kind. There were too many of us, my parents worked all the time, and I’m sure they couldn’t afford it. But we had the endless days of summer with our cousins, hanging out at the pool and making our own neighborhood adventures. We walked to the nearby grocery store, attempted to make homemade pizza, rode our bikes for miles and picked wild blackberries.

Our imaginations made going nowhere feel special.

When we had children of our own, I wanted to give them experiences that captured those feelings of joy and possibility. My son recently told me that I don’t plan family vacations; I plan family adventures. This is a diplomatic way of saying that our trips end up heavy on exertion and light on relaxation.

In my defense, doing something together that has an element of daring and provokes wonder at the world’s beauty is my definition of fun. If it takes some effort to find it, it makes the discovery even more memorable.

When you have young adult children, busy with their summer internships, friends and conflicting school schedules, you never know when you will get a chance for a family vacation. But the stars and our schedules aligned last month so we could all visit our daughter, who was finishing her semester in Paris.

We had less than a week, and I wanted us all to experience something new together. My research led me to Jungfraujoch, a mountain pass in the Bernese Alps with the highest train station in Europe. It’s part of the Swiss Alps Jungfrau-Aletsch UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Getting there from Paris would require some effort. We would take a Eurail train from Paris to Basel, Switzerland, and then to Interlaken, which takes about seven hours. From there, it would take one more train to a gondola, then yet another train ride up to Junfraujoch -- around two more hours of travel.

My husband was skeptical of the idea of traveling 20 hours round-trip over the course of three days just to spend two hours on a snow-covered mountain in the Alps.

It will be worth it, I promised. Privately, I hoped it would be.

When the train brought us into the mountainous Bernese Oberland region of central Switzerland, it felt like we were riding into a storybook. The sky was foggy as we passed emerald-colored lakes, bubbling rivers, clusters of chalets, ice-capped mountains, dense forests and glaciers. The scenery had a mystical feeling. What was it like to live enveloped by so much natural beauty?

I wanted to memorize the landscape and the look of awe on our children's faces when they saw the Alps for the first time.

We stayed the first night in the resort town of Interlaken, surprised by the number of Indian restaurants in a tourist town with 23,000 residents. We found ourselves eating in a small pizzeria run by a Syrian immigrant. I pointed out that we were eating an Italian dish with Turkish gyros served by a Syrian to Pakistani-Americans in Switzerland.

The next day, we trekked up the mountain to our Jungfraujoch destination. There were areas for panoramic views, a terrace to walk on the largest glacier in Europe, a path to hike in the snow and an ice palace filled with ice sculptures.

On our return, we accidentally took the wrong train and had to double back to catch the correct one. We missed our connection in Basel and had to reroute. I believe it took us 11 different trains to get from Wengen to Paris over the course of a very long day.

As much as we will remember the stunning landscapes of Switzerland, we will also remember running to catch our train and the leisurely lunch we ended up having at a cafe in Basel. Isn’t that part of what travel teaches us? Learn to pivot; be flexible; enjoy the moment in front of you.

I surveyed my family later about the adventure and the journey it required.

Unanimously, they said it was worth it.