Mindset of the Class of 2010

The world began for me sometime in the late 1960s. Why? Because they are the earliest years, I can truly remember world events. I was alive when JFK was assassinated, but I do not remember the events surrounding it. It might as well have been Abraham Lincoln or Julius Caesar, for that matter. While teaching an Intro to Sociology class in 1991, I made a passing mention of Paul McCartney. A student interrupted, asking who he was. Before I could respond, another student chimed in, "You know. He had that band called Wings." In the mid-1990s, my sister took her daughter to work one day, where my niece discovered an amazing machine with a keyboard just like a computer, but when you hit the key, this little ball tapped against the paper and printed the letter you had just typed.

Every year Beloit College does a "Mindset" analysis of the students entering college this year. I always get a kick out of it. Here are the top ten of seventy-five items listed on the,

BELOIT COLLEGE'S MINDSET LIST® FOR THE CLASS OF 2010

Members of the class of 2010, entering college this fall, were mostly born in 1988. For them: Billy Carter, Lucille Ball, Gilda Radner, Billy Martin, Andy Gibb, and Secretariat have always been dead.

1. The Soviet Union has never existed and therefore is about as scary as the student union.
2. They have known only two presidents.
3. For most of their lives, major U.S. airlines have been bankrupt.
4. Manuel Noriega has always been in jail in the U.S.
5. They have grown up getting lost in "big boxes."
6. There has always been only one Germany.
7. They have never heard anyone actually "ring it up" on a cash register.
8. They are wireless, yet always connected.
9. A stained blue dress is as famous to their generation as a third-rate burglary was to their parents'.
10. Thanks to pervasive headphones in the back seat, parents have always been able to speak freely in the front.