Beloit College put out its annual mindset list this week. The purpose of the list is to act "as a reminder of the rapidly changing frame of reference for this new generation." Beloit uses the list as a way to help their faculty get inside the heads of the incoming freshmen and to explicitly recognize that some of the cultural touchstones of a 50 year old professor are not the cultural touchstones of an 18 year old student.
For 18 year olds coming to college this year, Beloit notes, for example, that IBM has never made typewriters and there has always been GPS. Beloit just about killed me last year when they noted that the Soviet Union had never existed for those freshmen. This year, in turn, it suddenly hit me that the incoming freshmen were 11 years old when 9/11 happened. How much do you remember from when you were 11?
If that is not enough perspective for you, then check out the video made by the always incisive Dr. Michael Wesch and his students at Kansas State University:
My mom e-mailed me the same thing yesterday afternoon from work. It's amazing, as you glance through each statement that is made, just how much has changed in so little time and just how different the perspectives of the current generation are from those of our parents generation. I think Beloit has an interesting thing going here that really opens up the eyes of all to just how much our world has changed.
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