Each August since 1998, Beloit College has released the Beloit College Mindset List. It provides a look at the cultural touchstones that shape the lives of students entering college this fall. The creation of Beloit's Keefer Professor of the Humanities Tom McBride and former Public Affairs Director Ron Nief, it was originally created as a reminder to faculty to be aware of dated references, and quickly became a catalog of the rapidly changing worldview of each new generation.
The class of 2014 has never found Korean-made cars unusual on the Interstate and five hundred cable channels, of which they will watch a handful, have always been the norm. Since "digital" has always been in the cultural DNA, they've never written in cursive and with cell phones to tell them the time, there is no need for a wrist watch. Dirty Harry (who's that?) is to them a great Hollywood director. The America they have inherited is one of soaring American trade and budget deficits; Russia has presumably never aimed nukes at the United States and China has always posed an economic threat.
Most students entering college for the first time this fall—the Class of 2014—were born in 1992.
For these students, Benny Hill, Sam Kinison, Sam Walton, Bert Parks and Tony Perkins have always been dead.
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.
3. "Go West, Young College Grad" has always implied "and don't stop until you get to Asia…and learn Chinese along the way."
4. Al Gore has always been animated.
5. Los Angelenos have always been trying to get along.
6. They've never recognized that pointing to their wrists was a request for the time of day.
7. "Caramel macchiato" and "venti half-caf vanilla latte" have always been street corner lingo.
8.
With increasing numbers of ramps, Braille signs, and handicapped
parking spaces, the world has always been trying harder to accommodate
people with disabilities.
9. They never twisted the coiled handset wire aimlessly around their wrists while chatting on the phone.
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.
To view the entire list of 75 items, click the source link below.
Source: Beloit College
http://www.beloit.edu/mindset/2014.php
