Beloit College releases a mindset list every year, which “provides a look at the cultural touchstones that shape the lives of students entering college…”. Some of it is shocking. The students entering this fall (born in 1992) have these things in common (the full list, Copyright (c) 2010 Beloit College, can be found here):
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.
10. A quarter of the class has at least one immigrant parent, and the immigration debate is not a big priority…unless it involves “real” aliens from another planet.
11. John McEnroe has never played professional tennis.
12. Clint Eastwood is better known as a sensitive director than as Dirty Harry.
16. Korean cars have always been a staple on American highways.
17. Trading Chocolate the Moose for Patti the Platypus helped build their Beanie Baby collection.
18. Fergie is a pop singer, not a princess.
19. They never twisted the coiled handset wire aimlessly around their wrists while chatting on the phone.
25. Leno and Letterman have always been trading insults on opposing networks.
27. Computers have never lacked a CD-ROM disk drive.
32. Czechoslovakia has never existed.
35. Once they got through security, going to the airport has always resembled going to the mall.
43. Russians and Americans have always been living together in space.
44. The dominance of television news by the three networks passed while they were still in their cribs.
46. Nirvana is on the classic oldies station.
50. Toothpaste tubes have always stood up on their caps.
57. A purple dinosaur has always supplanted Barney Google and Barney Fife.
58. Beethoven has always been a dog.
59. By the time their folks might have noticed Coca Cola’s new Tab Clear, it was gone.
60. Walmart has never sold handguns over the counter in the lower 48.
61. Presidential appointees have always been required to be more precise about paying their nannies’ withholding tax, or else.
62. Having hundreds of cable channels but nothing to watch has always been routine.
64. The U.S, Canada, and Mexico have always agreed to trade freely.
65. They first met Michelangelo when he was just a computer virus.
68. They have never worried about a Russian missile strike on the U.S.
69. The Post Office has always been going broke.
70. The artist formerly known as Snoop Doggy Dogg has always been rapping.
71. The nation has never approved of the job Congress is doing.
DandyID
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