Members of this year’s freshman class, were born in 1994.
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 those who cannot comprehend that it has been 18 years since this year’s entering college students were born, they should recognize that the next four years will go even faster, confirming the authors’ belief that “generation gaps have always needed glue.”
The Mindset List for the Class of 2016
For this generation of entering college students, Kurt Cobain, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, Richard Nixon and John Wayne Gacy have always been dead.
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.
Michael Jackson’s family, not the Kennedys, constitutes “American Royalty.”
If they miss The Daily Show, they can always get their news on YouTube.
Robert De Niro is thought of as Greg Focker's long-suffering father-in-law, not as Vito Corleone or Jimmy Conway.
They have never seen an airplane “ticket.”
They can’t picture people actually carrying luggage through airports rather than rolling it.
There has always been football in Jacksonville but never in Los Angeles.
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.
Their folks have never gazed with pride on a new set of bound encyclopedias on the bookshelf.
Exposed bra straps have always been a fashion statement, not a wardrobe malfunction to be corrected quietly by well-meaning friends.
A significant percentage of them will enter college already displaying some hearing loss.
The Real World has always stopped being polite and started getting real on MTV.
Outdated icons with images of floppy discs for “save,” a telephone for “phone,” and a snail mail envelope for “mail” have oddly decorated their tablets and smart phone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.
Star Wars has always been just a film, not a defense strategy.
There have always been blue M&Ms, but no tan ones.’
Newt Gingrich has always been a key figure in politics, trying to change the way America thinks about everything.
Probably the most tribal generation in history, they despise being separated from contact with their similar-aged friends.
The Metropolitan Opera House in New York has always translated operas on seatback screens.
Gene therapy has always been an available treatment.
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.
Before they purchase an assigned textbook, they will investigate whether it is available for rent or purchase as an e-book.
There has always been a World Trade Organization.
There has always been a Santa Clause.
They have always enjoyed school and summer camp memories with a digital yearbook.
They know many established film stars by their voices on computer-animated blockbusters.
History has always had its own channel.
Television and film dramas have always risked being pulled because the story line was too close to the headlines from which they were ”ripped.”
TheTwilight Zone involves vampires, not Rod Serling.
Little Caesar has always been proclaiming “Pizza Pizza.”
They have no recollection of when Arianna Huffington was a conservative.
Chronic Fatigue Syndrome has always been officially recognized with clinical guidelines.
They watch television everywhere but on a television.
Pulp Fiction’s meal of a "Royale with Cheese" and an “Amos and Andy milkshake” has little or no resonance with them.
Point-and-shoot cameras are soooooo last millennium.
Despite being preferred urban gathering places, two-thirds of the independent bookstores in the United States have closed for good during their lifetimes.
Astronauts have always spent well over a year in a single space flight.
Genomes of living things have always been sequenced.
Copyright© 2012 Beloit College
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