Each August for the past 11 years, Beloit College in Beloit, Wis., has released the Beloit College Mindset List. It provides a look at the cultural touchstones that shape the lives of students entering college. It is the creation of Beloit’s Keefer Professor of the Humanities Tom McBride and Public Affairs Director Ron Nief. The List is shared with faculty and with thousands who request it each year as the school year begins, as a reminder of the rapidly changing frame of reference for this new generation.
There's a full list of 60 items at the website, and you can choose prior years too (at the top of that site).
Students entering college for the first time this fall were generally born in 1990..
For these students, Sammy Davis Jr., Jim Henson, Ryan White, Stevie Ray Vaughan and Freddy Krueger have always been dead
Here's a few I plucked out:
4. GPS satellite navigation systems have always been available.
9. Electronic filing of tax returns has always been an option.
18. WWW has never stood for World Wide Wrestling.
22. Clarence Thomas has always sat on the Supreme Court.
28. IBM has never made typewriters.
32. There has always been Pearl Jam.
33. The Tonight Show has always been hosted by Jay Leno and started at 11:35 EST.
44. Caller ID has always been available on phones.
50. They have never known life without Seinfeld references from a show about “nothing.”
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2 comments:
I don't suppose I've been around long enough for this year's to hit me yet; I wonder when they will.
I remember some of these things taking effect during my lifetime, but not with much clarity. Like the one about Mike Milken; I know who he is because of a Capital Steps song from 1990 that my parents taped for me and to which I listened for the next ten years.
But I do remember Pee Wee's Playhouse fondly.
"Windows 3.0 operating system made IBM PCs user-friendly the year they were born."
Ouch...
Since I am a child of the 80s does that mean when I am older I will need a hip-hop replacement?
I remember the first time I got a windows operating system. They gave us 5 inch floppy disks in school in which to save data for typing class. 1986 or 1987 if I remember correctly.
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