Admit it… you’re getting old. Okay, you may feel like a spring chicken, but I just had a birthday last week and any idea that I had that I was really younger than I look went up in flames when I had to use a fire extinguisher to douse the candles on my cake. So yes, I am getting old. And as if I didn’t need any more proof, out comes Beloit College’s annual “Mindset List.”
The list is complied each year by the school to remind faculty members that cultural and historical references familiar to them may be unfamiliar to the incoming freshman class. Many members of the class of 2010, entering college this fall, were born in 1988. For them: Billy Carter, Lucille Ball, Gilda Radner, Billy Martin, and Andy Gibb have always been dead. Still not feeling old? How about this, this year’s college freshmen have never been on an airplane that allowed smoking. They also believe disposable contact lenses have always been available and they have always used the word “Google” as a verb.
Still feeling young? Consider this, this year’s college freshmen:
Have only known only two U.S. presidents.
They are wireless, yet always connected.
To them a coffee has always taken longer to make than a milkshake.
A stained blue dress is as famous to their generation as a third-rate burglary was to their parents’
Faux fur has always been a necessary element of style.
Thanks to pervasive headphones in the back seat, parents have always been able to speak freely in the front.
They grew up pushing their own miniature shopping carts in the supermarket.
Text messaging is their email.
Milli Vanilli has never had anything to say.
Mr. Rogers, not Walter Cronkite, has always been the most trusted man in America.
Carbon copies are oddities found in their grandparents’ attics.
They grew up in mini-vans.
Reality shows have always been on television.
Being techno-savvy has always been inversely proportional to age.
Affluent troubled teens in Southern California have always been the subjects of television series.
“So” as in “Sooooo New York,” has always been a drawn-out adjective modifying a proper noun, which in turn modifies something else.
Small white holiday lights have always been in style.
They never played the game of state license plates in the car.
Disneyland has always been in Europe and Asia.
Dolphin-free canned tuna has always been on sale.
They have always “dissed” what they don’t like.
To read the complete “Mindset List” click here.