The Mindset List

Every year since 1998, Beloit College releases the "Mindset List." What started as a cultural reminder for teachers of incoming college freshmen has grown into a document used around the world. It's a touchstone of the rapidly changing frame of reference for this generation.

It's filled from the silly to the serious. Most of the students entering college this fall were born in 1991.

Members of the class of 2013 won't be surprised when they can charge a latte on their cell phone and curl up in the corner to read a textbook on an electronic screen. They live in a world organized around globalization with McDonald's everywhere on the planet. Carter and Reagan are as distant to them as Truman and Eisenhower were to their parents. Everybody knows the news before the evening news comes on.

Here are a few of my favorites from the list:

They have never used a card catalog to find a book.

Magic Johnson has always been HIV-positive.

Babies have always had a social security number.

The American health care system has always been in critical condition.

Women have always outnumbered men in college.

There has always been a computer in the oval office.

Chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream has always been a flavor choice.

The list is not intended to make the rest of us feel old but that's exactly what it does to me. It's still fun to read. To view the entire list, go to: http://www.beloit.edu/mindset/