What is True For This Year's College Freshmen

Each year Beloit College distributes their Mindset List and this year's was just released. The Mindset List gives a glimpse into the worldview of the nation's 18 year olds and the world they grew up in. The complete list for the class of 2011 can be found here, but here are some things that stood out to me:

• What Berlin Wall?
• They never "rolled down" a car window.
• They have grown up with bottled water.
• Nelson Mandela has always been free and a force in South Africa.
• Pete Rose has never played baseball.
• Rap music has always been mainstream.
• "Off the hook" has never had anything to do with a telephone.
• Wal-Mart has always been a larger retailer than Sears and has always employed more workers than GM.
• Al Gore has always been running for president or thinking about it.
• They grew up in Wayne's World.
• U2 has always been more than a spy plane.
• They were introduced to Jack Nicholson as "The Joker."
• Fox has always been a major network.
• Being a latchkey kid has never been a big deal.
• They learned about JFK from Oliver Stone and Malcolm X from Spike Lee.
• Tiananmen Square is a 2008 Olympics venue, not the scene of a massacre.
• MTV has never featured music videos.
• They get much more information from Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert than from the newspaper.
• They're always texting 1 n other.
• They never saw Johnny Carson live on television.
• The World Wide Web has been an online tool since they were born.
• Food packaging has always included nutritional labeling.

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