The year that I started college, Richard Nixon resigned, pocket calculators started appearing in stores and Jethro Tull was oh, so cool — at least with the kids I hung out with.
I realized how dramatically different the experiences of today’s college freshmen are after I read Beloit College’s Mindset List. Each year the liberal arts college releases an amusing list that captures the culutural life that the latest batch of freshmen have experienced.
Here are some of the life experiences that the Class of 2013 are bringing to college campuses:
- Shrek has always been the Green Giant, not the big guy picking vegetables.
- Dr. Seuss has always been dead.
- Flat screen televisions have always existed.
- Most communities have always had a mega church.
- Migration of TV, radio, videos and CDs to the computer never amazed them.
- The European Union has always existed.
- Today’s freshmen never used a card catalogue to find a book.
- Women have always outnumbered men in college.
- U.S. vice presidents have always enjoyed real power.
- Stores have always stocked blue Jell-O.
Lynn O’Shaughnessy is the author of The College Solution and the college blogger at CBSMoneyWatch.com.