As a college student just entering the job market, this trend will be an absolute nightmare if it continues to its natural terminus (all tech companies permanently and primarily WFH).
My current internship has been WFH for the past ~2 months and it has drastically reduced how much I actually enjoy my job. Talking with my coworkers and the office atmosphere in general was a large part of why I enjoyed my job, and that has been reduced to a daily standup over Zoom and a handful of strictly work-related Slack messages when necessary. I understand there are some people who simply like to clock in and clock out but for people like me for whom the office is a large source of regular socialization, working from home is incredibly lonely.
It seems as though a large amount of people pushing for WFH situations are more senior engineers, especially those with children or other concerns at home. For a moment, just put yourself in the shoes of a junior engineer or fresh grad who is new to the job or the industry in general and remember your first day on your first job. Probably the only thing that relieved some of the stress or anxiety was a friendly coworker, or the ability to grab a mentor to answer questions sitting just a few feet away. WFH, no matter the technology, cannot create a substitute for this.
First, please do not confuse "Work-from-Home" with "Remote Work". These are very different beasts, and the situation you are going through now is neither of those.
Second, if you can avoid entering the market now, do so. There is a lot of data showing how entering the job market in an economic downturn can be worse than a few years of unemployment. You will thank me 25 years from today.
Third, understand that Remote Work (not WFH!) will also allow you to separate the choice of place of where you live from the place/activity that makes you money. You don't have to live in a big faceless city. It will be okay to try spending 3-6 months in different places of the world, meet different people, find different ways to belong to your local community, whatever. If in the end you still want to do Remote Work in an environment that resembles a company office, it will be possible (again: Remote Work is not WFH)
Fourth, if the office is your largest source of regular socialization, I'd seriously recommend you finding ways to change or mitigate that regardless of your working conditions. As friendly and cordial your relationship with your colleagues is, they are still just colleagues. You are not in school anymore.
Lastly, things are changing for everyone, not just the juniors. Even the seniors will have to figure out some of the new protocols and processes when dealing with the upcoming challenges. But finding a way to communicate and exchange some thoughts with your colleagues will always be necessary and recommended. There is no reason to feel more anxious about it.
My current internship has been WFH for the past ~2 months and it has drastically reduced how much I actually enjoy my job. Talking with my coworkers and the office atmosphere in general was a large part of why I enjoyed my job, and that has been reduced to a daily standup over Zoom and a handful of strictly work-related Slack messages when necessary. I understand there are some people who simply like to clock in and clock out but for people like me for whom the office is a large source of regular socialization, working from home is incredibly lonely.
It seems as though a large amount of people pushing for WFH situations are more senior engineers, especially those with children or other concerns at home. For a moment, just put yourself in the shoes of a junior engineer or fresh grad who is new to the job or the industry in general and remember your first day on your first job. Probably the only thing that relieved some of the stress or anxiety was a friendly coworker, or the ability to grab a mentor to answer questions sitting just a few feet away. WFH, no matter the technology, cannot create a substitute for this.