The pandemic prompted young people to develop different strategies for coping with stress. Disruption of societal reality and the need to adapt to new situation affected people’s well-being significantly.The research was conducted between 15 and 30 June 2020 on a group of 151 students. The following tools were used: Ryff’s Psychological Well-Being Scales in the Polish adaptation and the authors' own tool for measuring coping with a pandemic situation and its perception. In addition to quantitative analysis, qualitative analysis was used. Well-being was found to be related to the perception of pandemic, the sense of coping with pandemic, the sense of support, and the sense of control. Within these relationships the gender differences were found. Social support turned out to be the most significant correlate of well-being in both men and women. Qualitative analyses identified three sub-models for each gender. The criterion that allowed us to select different groups of cases was subjects’ perception of the pandemic influence on their lives. The hypothesis: "Perception of the pandemic as a meaningful situation is related to psychological well-being" was confirmed only in the female group. The hypothesis: "Sense of better coping, feeling more supported, feeling more accepted, and feeling more in control are positively associated with psychological wellbeing" was confirmed (except for acceptance). Qualitative analyses showed that women were more involved in building social support network and experienced a stronger loss of control over the crisis. Men manifested greater autonomy and resourcefulness in emergency situation.