BELOIT COLLEGE'S MINDSET LIST® FOR THE CLASS OF 2011

My alma mater, Beloit College, Beloit, Wisconsin has released its Mindset List for the Class of 2011. Most of the students entering College this fall, members of the Class of 2011, were born in 1989. For them, Alvin Ailey, Andrei Sakharov, Huey Newton, Emperor Hirohito, Ted Bundy, Abbie Hoffman, and Don the Beachcomber have always been dead. The list is published to help professors understand the gap between their experiences and those of their students. At the mindset list website you can see lists from 2002 to the present. Fascinating reading (of course, I am a bit prejudiced).

URL: http://www.beloit.edu/~pubaff/mindset/2011.php

Below are a few of the 70 items on the list.
4. They never “rolled down” a car window.
7. They have grown up with bottled water.
10. Pete Rose has never played baseball.
11. Rap music has always been mainstream.
17. They were born the year Harvard Law Review Editor Barack Obama announced he might run for office some day.
23. Wal-Mart has always been a larger retailer than Sears and has always employed more workers than GM.
34. They were introduced to Jack Nicholson as “The Joker.”
39. Fox has always been a major network.
45. They learned about JFK from Oliver Stone and Malcolm X from Spike Lee.
47. High definition television has always been available.
55. MTV has never featured music videos.
66. The World Wide Web has been an online tool since they were born.
68. Burma has always been Myanmar.
70. Food packaging has always included nutritional labeling.