Young People = Don't Know Nothin'

Hi folks -- late August means the college kids are heading back to school, so there's the usual spate of college articles. Such as this Washington Post article from Sunday: 3,000 First-Years, All Searching for a Connection.

Yes, besides all the usual move-in hassles, hovering parents, hauling boxes up steps, meeting the roommate, etc., new frosh and college admins also have to worry about how to get everyone's laptop computer up and running on the dorm-wide wireless network.

It's an interesting article, if only to show that for today's young people, internet access is like oxygen -- they can't imagine life without it.

(When I moved in, I think I had a hot-pot, a clock radio and a mini-fridge. I'd read about interconnected computer networks, but never thought I'd be bothering with one.)

Speaking of new frosh, the Beloit College Class of 2010 Mindset list is out -- it's a tongue-in-cheek guide for professors about what the incoming freshmen, mostly born in 1988, have "always known."

Cherry-picking the list:

  1.       The Soviet Union has never existed and therefore is about as scary as the student union.     
  6.      There has always been only one Germany.
16.      DNA fingerprinting has always been admissible evidence in court.
63.      Television stations have never concluded the broadcast day with the national anthem.
67.      Disposable contact lenses have always been available.

There are 75 items in all. It's meant to stimulate discussion, so don't be one of those humorless folks who nitpick what "always" means ("Hey, German unification didn't occur until 1990!").

[Link via fark.com and all the usual social link sharing sites, which means you'll be hearing it on the radio and on the TV news tonight or tomorrow]

For all the stuff that young folks don't know -- or at least, don't "get" (and just because you've seen pictures in books, doesn't mean you know what it was really like to dial a rotary phone) -- there are plenty ofthings that they do know, leaving us fogies in the dust.

For example, the kids entering college now don't know a world where people weren't getting online, but they'll eventually be generation-gapped by the kids who are growing up with social networking and online video sharing sites, etc.

It's always instructive to do the math -- for people growing up in 2006, 1986 is as irrelevant or far away to them as 1966 was to folks in 1986. And so on, and so forth.

If you've got an item that you think should be on this year's list, leave a comment below.

Also, all you kids: Get offa my lawn!

Thanks -- Joe

Tags: beloit college mindset list