What Is True For The Class Of 2015?

Photo Credit: StudyGroupAlex

Each year around this time Beloit College releases what they call the Mindset List -- a list of important facts and events which influence the worldview and perspective that this year's college freshmen class brings with them.

This year's list, which is made up for the graduating class of 2015, represents those students who were born in 1993. You can read the complete list here but I've included some entries below that I found particularly interesting:

There has always been an Internet ramp onto the information highway.

The only significant labor disputes in their lifetimes have been in major league sports.

There have always been at least two women on the Supreme Court, and women have always commanded U.S. Navy ships.

As they’ve grown up on websites and cell phones, adult experts have constantly fretted about their alleged deficits of empathy and concentration.

Amazon has never been just a river in South America.

Refer to LBJ, and they might assume you're talking about LeBron James.

O.J. Simpson has always been looking for the killers of Nicole Simpson and Ronald Goldman.

We have never asked, and they have never had to tell.

John Wayne Bobbitt has always slept with one eye open.

“Yadda, yadda, yadda” has always come in handy to make long stories short.

Jimmy Carter has always been a smiling elderly man who shows up on TV to promote fair elections and disaster relief.

Dial-up is soooooooooo last century!

Their older siblings have told them about the days when Britney Spears, Justin Timberlake and Christina Aguilera were Mouseketeers.

Music has always been available via free downloads.

They pressured their parents to take them to Taco Bell or Burger King to get free pogs.

No state has ever failed to observe Martin Luther King Day.

Charter schools have always been an alternative.

They’ve often broken up with their significant others via texting, Facebook, or MySpace.

Frasier, Sam, Woody and Rebecca have never Cheerfully frequented a bar in Boston during primetime.

Major League Baseball has never had fewer than three divisions and never lacked a wild card entry in the playoffs.

They won’t go near a retailer that lacks a website.

“PC” has come to mean Personal Computer, not Political Correctness.

The world that today's college freshman has grown up in is not the same world that the freshmen of 10, 20 or 50 years ago experienced. These things must be kept in mind in order to effectively reach out to this generation of up-and-coming leaders.