I still have a few years until my kids will be entering college and am acutely aware of the realities of what life was like for them growing up, but each year when I see the Beloit College Mindset list it is a reminder of how much life has changed since I entered college myself oh so many years ago! This is the 12th official list, going back to the class of 2002 list made in 1998!
Here are a few samples of things from the list that made me stop in my tracks:
1. Few in the class know how to write in cursive.
2. Email is just too slow, and they seldom if ever use snail mail.
5. Los Angelenos have always been trying to get along.
12. Clint Eastwood is better known as a sensitive director than as Dirty Harry.
19. They never twisted the coiled handset wire aimlessly around their wrists while chatting on the phone.
27. Computers have never lacked a CD-ROM disk drive.
28. They’ve never recognized that pointing to their wrists was a request for the time of day.
32. Czechoslovakia has never existed.
33. Second-hand smoke has always been an official carcinogen.
35. Once they got through security, going to the airport has always resembled going to the mall.
39. Pizza jockeys from Domino’s have never killed themselves to get your pizza there in under 30 minutes.
41. American companies have always done business in Vietnam.
43. Russians and Americans have always been living together in space.
46. Nirvana is on the classic oldies station.
58. Beethoven has always been a good name for a dog.
62. Having hundreds of cable channels but nothing to watch has always been routine.
68. They have never worried about a Russian missile strike on the U.S.
71. The nation has never approved of the job Congress is doing.
And another interesting thing? Here is a quote from this year:
56. They may have assumed that parents’ complaints about Black Monday had to do with punk rockers from L.A., not Wall Street.
And from the original list?
4. Black Monday 1987 is as significant to them as the Great Depression.
Of course, those kids who were the amazing class of 2002, who ended up having the 9/11 attacks as a centerpiece of their senior year in college … are all turning 30 this year!
So what on the list makes YOU feel old?
Source: Beloit College Mindset
