Each August since 1998, Beloit College has released the Beloit College Mindset List, providing a look at the cultural touchstones that shape the lives of students entering college this fall.

For Freshmen entering college this year:

quote The Mindset List for the Class of 2016 For this generation of entering college students, born in 1994, Kurt Cobain, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, Richard Nixon and John Wayne Gacy have always been dead. 1.They should keep their eyes open for Justin Bieber or Dakota Fanning at freshman orientation. 2.They have always lived in cyberspace, addicted to a new generation of “electronic narcotics.” 3.The Biblical sources of terms such as “Forbidden Fruit,” “The writing on the wall,” “Good Samaritan,” and “The Promised Land” are unknown to most of them. 4.Michael Jackson’s family, not the Kennedys, constitutes “American Royalty.” 5.If they miss The Daily Show, they can always get their news on YouTube. 6.Their lives have been measured in the fundamental particles of life: bits, bytes, and bauds. 7.Robert De Niro is thought of as Greg Focker's long-suffering father-in-law, not as Vito Corleone or Jimmy Conway. 8.Bill Clinton is a senior statesman of whose presidency they have little knowledge. 9.They have never seen an airplane “ticket.” 10.On TV and in films, the ditzy dumb blonde female generally has been replaced by a couple of Dumb and Dumber males. 11.The paradox "too big to fail" has been, for their generation, what "we had to destroy the village in order to save it" was for their grandparents'. 12.For most of their lives, maintaining relations between the U.S. and the rest of the world has been a woman’s job in the State Department. 13.They can’t picture people actually carrying luggage through airports rather than rolling it. 14.There has always been football in Jacksonville but never in Los Angeles. 15.Having grown up with MP3s and iPods, they never listen to music on the car radio and really have no use for radio at all. 16.Since they've been born, the United States has measured progress by a 2 percent jump in unemployment and a 16 cent rise in the price of a first class postage stamp. 17.Benjamin Braddock, having given up both a career in plastics and a relationship with Mrs. Robinson, could be their grandfather. 18.Their folks have never gazed with pride on a new set of bound encyclopedias on the bookshelf. 19.The Green Bay Packers have always celebrated with the Lambeau Leap. 20.Exposed bra straps have always been a fashion statement, not a wardrobe malfunction to be corrected quietly by well-meaning friends. 21.A significant percentage of them will enter college already displaying some hearing loss. 22.The Real World has always stopped being polite and started getting real on MTV. 23.Women have always piloted war planes and space shuttles. 24.White House security has never felt it necessary to wear rubber gloves when gay groups have visited. 25.They have lived in an era of instant stardom and self-proclaimed celebrities, famous for being famous. 26.Having made the acquaintance of Furby at an early age, they have expected their toy friends to do ever more unpredictable things. 27.Outdated icons with images of floppy discs for “save,” a telephone for “phone,” and a snail mail envelope for “mail” have oddly decorated their tablets and smart phone screens. 28.Star Wars has always been just a film, not a defense strategy. 29.They have had to incessantly remind their parents not to refer to their CDs and DVDs as “tapes.” 30.There have always been blue M&Ms, but no tan ones.’ 31.Along with online viewbooks, parents have always been able to check the crime stats for the colleges their kids have selected. 32.Newt Gingrich has always been a key figure in politics, trying to change the way America thinks about everything. 33.They have come to political consciousness during a time of increasing doubts about America’s future. 34.Billy Graham is as familiar to them as Otto Graham was to their parents. 35.Probably the most tribal generation in history, they despise being separated from contact with their similar-aged friends. 36.Stephen Breyer has always been an Associate Justice on the U.S. Supreme Court. 37.Martin Lawrence has always been banned from hosting Saturday Night Live. 38.Slavery has always been unconstitutional in Mississippi, and Southern Baptists have always been apologizing for supporting it in the first place. 39.The Metropolitan Opera House in New York has always translated operas on seatback screens. 40.A bit of the late Gene Roddenberry, creator of Star Trek, has always existed in space. 41.Good music programmers are rock stars to the women of this generation, just as guitar players were for their mothers. 42.Gene therapy has always been an available treatment. 43.They were too young to enjoy the 1994 World Series, but then no one else got to enjoy it either. 44.The folks have always been able to grab an Aleve when the kids started giving them a migraine. 45.While the iconic TV series for their older siblings was the sci-fi show Lost, for them it’s Breaking Bad, a gritty crime story motivated by desperate economic circumstances. 46.Simba has always had trouble waiting to be King. 47.Before they purchase an assigned textbook, they will investigate whether it is available for rent or purchase as an e-book. 48.They grew up, somehow, without the benefits of Romper Room. 49.There has always been a World Trade Organization. 50.L.L. Bean hunting shoes have always been known as just plain Bean Boots. 51.They have always been able to see Starz on Direct TV. 52.Ice skating competitions have always been jumping matches. 53.There has always been a Santa Clause. 54.NBC has never shown A Wonderful Life more than twice during the holidays. 55.Mr. Burns has replaced J.R.Ewing as the most shot-at man on American television. 56.They have always enjoyed school and summer camp memories with a digital yearbook. 57.Herr Schindler has always had a List; Mr. Spielberg has always had an Oscar. 58.Selena's fans have always been in mourning. 59.They know many established film stars by their voices on computer-animated blockbusters. 60.History has always had its own channel. 61.Thousands have always been gathering for “million-man” demonstrations in Washington, D.C. 62.Television and film dramas have always risked being pulled because the story line was too close to the headlines from which they were ”ripped.” 63.TheTwilight Zone involves vampires, not Rod Serling. 64.Robert Osborne has always been introducing Hollywood history on TCM. 65.Little Caesar has always been proclaiming “Pizza Pizza.” 66.They have no recollection of when Arianna Huffington was a conservative. 67.Chronic Fatigue Syndrome has always been officially recognized with clinical guidelines. 68.They watch television everywhere but on a television. 69.Pulp Fiction’s meal of a "Royale with Cheese" and an “Amos and Andy milkshake” has little or no resonance with them. 70.Point-and-shoot cameras are soooooo last millennium. 71.Despite being preferred urban gathering places, two-thirds of the independent bookstores in the United States have closed for good during their lifetimes. 72.Astronauts have always spent well over a year in a single space flight. 73.Lou Gehrig's record for most consecutive baseball games played has never stood in their lifetimes. 74.Genomes of living things have always been sequenced. 75.The Sistine Chapel ceiling has always been brighter and cleaner.

14.There has always been football in Jacksonville but never in Los Angeles.


Now I feel old!

All the pop-culture, technology, and style type stuff aside which I think is pretty much the norm for every incoming generation... the ONE thing which has changed... significantly so... is that today's society really has no f**king clue about history. I'm still pretty young, graduated high school in the late 90s. And I still know a good amount about modern history (which more or less includes the last 50 years). I was in single digits through most of Reagan's Administration, but I still know what he did, same with Carter, Ford, Nixon, and Kennedy.

The difference is that today's society focuses so much on the minutia of everything. Rather than focus on the big picture, people are bombarded with information about stuff that really just doesn't matter... so they focus on little things that really don't matter mostly in the big picture. This is something that has been thrust upon this generation by the onset of ultra-fast communications... facilitated by the internet at work, at home, and on our mobile phones. It has changed the way the media outlets handle news and do their reporting, and it has affected the way we as humans process these large amounts of data.

I think it's going to be a while really before the human race adjusts to this newer concept of on-demand information.

quote Originally posted by 82-T/A [At Work]: All the pop-culture, technology, and style type stuff aside which I think is pretty much the norm for every incoming generation... the ONE thing which has changed... significantly so... is that today's society really has no f**king clue about history. I'm still pretty young, graduated high school in the late 90s. And I still know a good amount about modern history (which more or less includes the last 50 years). I was in single digits through most of Reagan's Administration, but I still know what he did, same with Carter, Ford, Nixon, and Kennedy.

Keep in mind you graduated from High School about 15 years ago.
That's the difference between someone born in 1980 and someone born in 1965. I was born in '65 and remember (vaguely) watching the moon landing. I watched the Apollo-Soyuz and Skylab missions on TV. I remember Vietnam as it happened. Those are all just things you heard about in history, just like today's Freshman only heard about Ronald Reagan or Bill Clinton as historical figures, not Presidents they may remember growing up.

33.They have come to political consciousness during a time of increasing doubts about America’s future.

Ha! Incoming freshmen and political consciousness do not match up. People aren't typically getting involved until the later college years now. They all have opinions, but are hardly ever based on independent thought.

In ten years:

Those who were born in 2005 will be entering college as freshmen. They will consider Obama to be a senior statesmen, too.

Heh... I was born in '57.
I still remember hiding under my desk at school during "duck and cover" drills - courtesy of the Cuban Missile Crisis.
I remember when we still only had dial phones, which were wired in to the wall and couldn't be unplugged.
I remember having 3 commercial TV channels (2, 5 and 11) and one educational channel (8). Then we got UHF, and channel 17 (which became TBS.)
I remember watching the first walk on the moon - in black and white, even on our first color TV (which was a big deal at the time.) Took pictures of the screen with our Polaroid camera.
I remember what I was doing when JFK was shot. (I was in first grade. We were in "singing" class.)
I remember when CDs were introduced. (Along with the argument about which sounded better - Digital or vinyl.)
I remember when "stereo" (i.e. two speakers instead of just one) was a big deal.
I remember when anything larger than a portable radio still had tubes. I also remember the first transistor radio we ever owned. I may even still have it. (It was a Magnavox.)