Yes... You are old.

[Charles M]

Welcome to the Beloit College Mindset List for the entering college class of 2014

Beloit, Wis. – Born when Ross Perot was warning about a giant sucking sound and Bill Clinton was apologizing for pain in his marriage, members of this fall’s entering college class of 2014 have emerged as a post-email generation for whom the digital world is routine and technology is just too slow.

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 Mindset List website at www.beloit.edu/mindset, the Mediasite webcast and its Facebook page receive more than 400,000 hits annually.

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.

Nonetheless, they plan to enjoy college. The males among them are likely to be a minority. They will be armed with iPhones and BlackBerries, on which making a phone call will be only one of many, many functions they will perform. They will now be awash with a computerized technology that will not distinguish information and knowledge. So it will be up to their professors to help them. A generation accustomed to instant access will need to acquire the patience of scholarship. They will discover how to research information in books and journals and not just on-line. Their professors, who might be tempted to think that they are hip enough and therefore ready and relevant to teach the new generation, might remember that Kurt Cobain is now on the classic oldies station. The college class of 2014 reminds us, once again, that a generation comes and goes in the blink of our eyes, which are, like the rest of us, getting older and older.

[ClutchCargo]

Yeah, I kinda got that message the other day on the best album thread (btw, what's an "album"?),
when some jokers said they never heard of that guy Jackson Browne but he must be pretty good.
We have some interns in our office who don't know who Michael J. Fox is. :rolleyes:


Gotta go listen to "Hey, Nineteen" now . . .

[Ken Robb]

I still get young passengers in my cars who have never seen a stick shift before. How about explaining "in the groove, you sound like a broken record, or what's the flip side?"

[veloduffer]

I still get young passengers in my cars who have never seen a stick shift before. How about explaining "in the groove, you sound like a broken record, or what's the flip side?"

Kids also don't know how to open a car window with a manual crank. It wasn't until the early 90s that we had air conditioning in our car.

[AngryScientist]

The Beloit College Mindset List for the Class of 2014

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 Angelinos have always been trying to get along.

6. Buffy has always been meeting her obligations to hunt down Lothos and the other blood-suckers at Hemery High.

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. Had it remained operational, the villainous computer HAL could be their college classmate this fall, but they have a better chance of running into Miley Cyrus’s folks on Parents’ Weekend.

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.

11. John McEnroe has never played professional tennis.

12. Clint Eastwood is better known as a sensitive director than as Dirty Harry.

13. Parents and teachers feared that Beavis and Butt-head might be the voice of a lost generation.

14. Doctor Kevorkian has never been licensed to practice medicine.

15. Colorful lapel ribbons have always been worn to indicate support for a cause.

16. Korean cars have always been a staple on American highways.

17. Trading Chocolate the Moose for Patti the Platypus helped build their Beanie Baby collection.

18. Fergie is a pop singer, not a princess.

19. They never twisted the coiled handset wire aimlessly around their wrists while chatting on the phone.

20. DNA fingerprinting and maps of the human genome have always existed.

21. Woody Allen, whose heart has wanted what it wanted, has always been with Soon-Yi Previn.

22. Cross-burning has always been deemed protected speech.

23. Leasing has always allowed the folks to upgrade their tastes in cars.

24. “Cop Killer” by rapper Ice-T has never been available on a recording.

25. Leno and Letterman have always been trading insults on opposing networks.

26. Unless they found one in their grandparents’ closet, they have never seen a carousel of Kodachrome slides.

27. Computers have never lacked a CD-ROM disk drive.

28. They’ve never recognized that pointing to their wrists was a request for the time of day.

29. Reggie Jackson has always been enshrined in Cooperstown.

30. “Viewer Discretion” has always been an available warning on TV shows.

31. The first computer they probably touched was an Apple II; it is now in a museum.

32. Czechoslovakia has never existed.

33. Second-hand smoke has always been an official carcinogen.

34. “Assisted Living” has always been replacing nursing homes, while Hospice has always been an alternative to hospitals.

35. Once they got through security, going to the airport has always resembled going to the mall.

36. Adhesive strips have always been available in varying skin tones.

37. Whatever their parents may have thought about the year they were born, Queen Elizabeth declared it an “Annus Horribilis.”

38. Bud Selig has always been the Commissioner of Major League Baseball.

39. Pizza jockeys from Domino’s have never killed themselves to get your pizza there in under 30 minutes.

40. There have always been HIV positive athletes in the Olympics.

41. American companies have always done business in Vietnam.

42. Potato has always ended in an “e” in New Jersey per vice presidential edict.

43. Russians and Americans have always been living together in space.

44. The dominance of television news by the three networks passed while they were still in their cribs.

45. They have always had a chance to do community service with local and federal programs to earn money for college.

46. Nirvana is on the classic oldies station.

47. Children have always been trying to divorce their parents.

48. Someone has always gotten married in space.

49. While they were babbling in strollers, there was already a female Poet Laureate of the United States.

50. Toothpaste tubes have always stood up on their caps.

51. Food has always been irradiated.

52. There have always been women priests in the Anglican Church.

53. J.R. Ewing has always been dead and gone. Hasn’t he?

54. The historic bridge at Mostar in Bosnia has always been a copy.

55. Rock bands have always played at presidential inaugural parties.

56. They may have assumed that parents’ complaints about Black Monday had to do with punk rockers from L.A., not Wall Street.

57. A purple dinosaur has always supplanted Barney Google and Barney Fife.

58. Beethoven has always been a dog.

59. By the time their folks might have noticed Coca Cola’s new Tab Clear, it was gone.

60. Walmart has never sold handguns over the counter in the lower 48.

61. Presidential appointees have always been required to be more precise about paying their nannies’ withholding tax, or else.

62. Having hundreds of cable channels but nothing to watch has always been routine.

63. Their parents’ favorite TV sitcoms have always been showing up as movies.

64. The U.S, Canada, and Mexico have always agreed to trade freely.

65. They first met Michelangelo when he was just a computer virus.

66. Galileo is forgiven and welcome back into the Roman Catholic Church.

67. Ruth Bader Ginsburg has always sat on the Supreme Court.

68. They have never worried about a Russian missile strike on the U.S.

69. The Post Office has always been going broke.

70. The artist formerly known as Snoop Doggy Dogg has always been rapping.

71. The nation has never approved of the job Congress is doing.

72. One way or another, “It’s the economy, stupid” and always has been.

73. Silicone-gel breast implants have always been regulated.

74. They’ve always been able to blast off with the Sci-Fi Channel.

75. Honda has always been a major competitor on Memorial Day at Indianapolis.

[djg]

63. Their parents’ favorite TV sitcoms have always been showing up as movies.

More to the point (alas), their parents' favorite 3 minute TV sketch comedy bits have always been showing up in theaters as full-length feature films.

Many movies are based on literature, which is to say comic books. The comic book version typically is more subtle, and, you know, literary, but the movie has better special effects. And a set of companion toys available with happy meals at Mickey Ds.

[prolearts]

I still get young passengers in my cars who have never seen a stick shift before. How about explaining "in the groove, you sound like a broken record, or what's the flip side?"

Amusingly, I still cut lacquer masters for vinyl records as a good part of my making a living. I think sales of them are evenly split between hi-fi audio types with expensive turntables, indy-rock fetishists who never stopped buying records and a bunch of kids who are discovering the fun of flipping records over on their USB turntables. Most do come with digital download codes inside now though, so I think a fair amount of people may even just be buying them as a big piece of artwork with digital downloads included. Weird times!

[OtayBW]

76. 'Wings' was Paul McCartney's first band. :rolleyes:

[MattTuck]

27. Computers have never lacked a CD-ROM disk drive.


Someone should tell the authors that they're now called DVDs. :rolleyes:

[Kevan]

I have no idea what you guys are talking about.

- stayin' young

[JeffS]

76. 'Wings' was Paul McCartney's first band. :rolleyes:

Gettin' outdated on that one. Paul who? is more like it.

[tuxbailey]

and I am not even 40 :crap:

[Ken Robb]

I have no idea what you guys are talking about.

- stayin' young

You're SOOOOO old you forgot!

[endosch2]

My wife teaches at a well known New England boarding school and last spring I was at dinner with a group of the high school aged ruling future of america and I described a job that I had during the "dot-com boom".... They all looked at me with an empty stare and said "what is the dot-com boom???"

[PaulE]

63. Their parents’ favorite TV sitcoms have always been showing up as movies.

More to the point (alas), their parents' favorite 3 minute TV sketch comedy bits have always been showing up in theaters as full-length feature films.

Many movies are based on literature, which is to say comic books. The comic book version typically is more subtle, and, you know, literary, but the movie has better special effects. And a set of companion toys available with happy meals at Mickey Ds.

We've already had movie remakes of Underdog, Speed Racer and Astro Boy. I hope I live to see a movie remake of Tobor, the 8th Man and Crusader Rabbit.

[Dekonick]

Think about this:

Star Wars is a slow paced movie... :rolleyes: assuming they have seen IV-VI...

2001 is not about a space odyssey but remembered for 9-11-01...

1984... well they weren't even born...

In 10 years the kids will question what a quill stem is...

Progress :beer:

[jghall]

Great stuff Pez.

Hell, forget stick, how about 3 on the tree. :rolleyes:

I still get young passengers in my cars who have never seen a stick shift before.

[Ken Robb]

three on the tree is the new-fangled stick system that Ford finally brought out on the 1940 models. I knew it would never last.

[Louis]

Somewhere in all my stuff at work I have a stack of computer punch cards. They were no longer using them when I started, but I remember seeing an old reader sitting in a corner and some folks had old decks in storage "just in case."

[chuckroast]

Oh sure....post this thread up on my frickin' birthday, now I really feel old :)

[Louis]

Oh sure....post this thread up on my frickin' birthday, now I really feel old :)

Happy Birthday :beer: :beer: :beer:

Stay in shape and soon you can be the "fast old guy."

[djg]

We've already had movie remakes of Underdog, Speed Racer and Astro Boy. I hope I live to see a movie remake of Tobor, the 8th Man and Crusader Rabbit.

And more. And I'm not sure whether to count superheros (Superman, Batman), who came off the page onto the small screen, before heading to Hollywood, as remakes.

For "originals," nobody wants to focus on Garfield, etc., etc. Pokemon.

I'm not sure whether Transformers started as a comic that begat toys or actually started as a toy. It's probably one wikepedia search away, but I don't have the heart for it.

Tank Girl was an interesting variation, if not actually any good as a movie. Cherry Poptart might have been an interesting choice. Personally, I'm waiting for Maus.

[rugbysecondrow]

This is funny. Being 33, I have always thought of myself as being a member of a tween generation having stradled the pre and post tech boom...between typewriters and computers, between the dewey decimal system and the internet research, between encyclopedias and wikipedia, rotery and pay phones to PDAs, from black and white TV to dvr/streaming, from walking and riding to school everyday to parental shepherding....it could go on. I think many generations could articulate similar types of contrasts, but the my/our generation I think saw these huge leaps at very formative stages to the degree that we were able to be early adaptors or new technology while still remembering the old.

Even being young at 33, I wrote papers on a typewriter up through highschool, then two years later it was all email and internet reasearch in college...very different and a huge leap. Even my entrace paperwork into the military at the age of 17 was processed on a typewriter and not a computer...I wouldn't know where to go to find a typewrite now. The way people comunicate is completely different...I still remember punching "0" and actually having an operator come on the line...now smartphones have rendered that and even the phone book itself obsolete. Then there are my parents who still not only get the newspaper, but rely on it for the TV Guide...

It is funny because young people have it easier, but harder as well. If I took questionable photos, I had to figure out what store would actually process them and return them without getting flagged. Now, with sexting, the photos are not the issue, but rather the proliferation. It was too hard in the past now it is too easy. "Latch key kid" was prevailant label in the 80's and early 90's, now kids are sheltered and shuttled everywhere and almost smothered too much. Again, not sure what is better, probably a middle ground, but interesting the contrast.

[LesMiner]

So how about a little more retro. Class of 1964 might of had a few items on the list like these.

- Never listen to music on 78 rpm records
- Television and movies are all suppose to be in color
- Have always had toliet paper
- Have always been living under Communist threat
- Have both AM and FM
- Dining out means sitting in a car eating a hamburger and drinking a root beer.

[Pete Serotta]

I have no idea what you guys are talking about.

- stayin' young
;) ;)

[67-59]

Sorry, but how can it be true that "few" in the class know how to write in cursive? I understand that handwriting isn't as important a skill as it used to be and that kids don't do it as often as in the past, but they do still teach it in the schools. My kids were born in 1994 and 1996, and they both learned how to write in cursive, and do it all the time -- from keeping diaries, to jotting down notes, or whatever. I think the folks in Beloit are off the mark on that one....

[Dekonick]

Imagine the changes from 1880 to 1910... and compare that to 1980 to 2010...

The last 200 years have seen amazing changes. Makes one wonder what the next generation will live with.

[rounder]

Most likely makes me old. Started college as an engineering major and had to haul around a sliderule (mine was a bamboo laminate). The party bands played James Brown and Rufus Thomas. The Beatles were on the jukebox. Bought a Martin guitar. Went to many concerts and played lots of hours on guitar (not that it shows). Along the way, saw the light and became an accountant. For kids today, things have changed but hope they have the same opportunity we did.