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Home Front: Culture Wars
Beloit College's Mindset List for 2010 Freshmen...Damn, I Feel Old Now!!
2006-08-23
Just the top ten of 75...
Beloit College has released its latest “Mindset List,” to help academics understand what freshmen know — and what they don’t have a clue about. This list has been prepared each August since 1998 and past lists are available online. Here is this year’s list, for the Class of 2010:
1. The Soviet Union has never existed and therefore is about as scary as the student union.
2. They have known only two presidents.
3. For most of their lives, major U.S. airlines have been bankrupt.
4. Manuel Noriega has always been in jail in the U.S.
5. They have grown up getting lost in “big boxes”.
6. There has always been only one Germany.
7. They have never heard anyone actually “ring it up” on a cash register.
8. They are wireless, yet always connected.
9. A stained blue dress is as famous to their generation as a third-rate burglary was to their parentsÂ’.
10. Thanks to pervasive head phones in the back seat, parents have always been able to speak freely in the front.
Posted by:Swamp Blondie

#10  LOL, Mike. God that makes me feel old.

Here's something you may enjoy:

History's Unsent Telegrams

H/T to .com for turning me on to this site's killer graphics. Enjoy.
Posted by: flyover   2006-08-23 23:25  

#9  A couple summers ago, I was riding in a car with my buddy Dan and his oldest boy Andy, who's best friends with my oldest. Dan mentioned that his first job was delivering telegrams in downtown Cleveland.

Andy, innocent as newfallen snow, asks, "What's a telegram?"

"It's prehistoric e-mail."

"Oh."
Posted by: Mike   2006-08-23 23:12  

#8  Yep, Beloit be in Wisconsin. Figured you for a Sun Devil all along.
Posted by: Besoeker   2006-08-23 15:58  

#7  Nope, Besoeker, Arizona State University. I don't even know where Beloit is. ;) (Wisconsin, right?)
Posted by: Swamp Blondie   2006-08-23 11:57  

#6  Swamp Blondie:

You graduate from Beloit eh?
Posted by: Besoeker   2006-08-23 11:15  

#5  3. For most of their lives, major U.S. airlines have been bankrupt.

And this matters to them...how?

4. Manuel Noriega has always been in jail in the U.S.

Who? (I know who Noriega is, but they probably won't.)

5. They have grown up getting lost in “big boxes”.

Whuh?

7. They have never heard anyone actually “ring it up” on a cash register.

They've never dialed a telephone, either.

9. A stained blue dress is as famous to their generation as a third-rate burglary was to their parentsÂ’.

I gotta tell ya, I vaguely knew what the whole Watergate thing was about, but I really wasn't paying that much attention. And I paid far more attention than most kids my age. Of course, Watergate wasn't about sex, either. That might make a difference.
Posted by: Angie Schultz   2006-08-23 11:12  

#4  When my grandparents were children, most people still got around on horse or by foot. Powered aircraft flight was unknown. Most of the US was not wired for electricity. Healthy people looked fat. The US Navy had actually gone to the other side of the world and come back.

The US was "bogged down in the quagmire" of a 14-year-long war in the Philippines.

Against Moslems.

When their grandparents, my grandparents' grandparents, were children, the US had finally built a ship big enough so that we could tell the Barbary Pirates to "bugger off".

Moslems, again.
Posted by: Anonymoose   2006-08-23 09:37  

#3  Don't be silly, mcsegeek1. They never could. But for the most part, neither can the rest of their age mates around the world.
Posted by: trailing wife   2006-08-23 09:25  

#2  How about "They can't find American states and cities or foreign countries on a map"?
Posted by: mcsegeek1   2006-08-23 08:57  

#1  I love this list becasue it really makes one think about history and how we perceive the past ourselves. But in this case, number 9 will be number 1.
Posted by: Nimble Spemble   2006-08-23 08:21  

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