What Is True For The College Freshmen Of 2013?

Photo Credit: Sterling College

Each year at the start of the new school year, 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 2017, represents those students who were born in 1995.

You can read the complete list here but I've included some entries below that I found particularly interesting:

• As they started to crawl, so did the news across the bottom of the television screen.

• As their parents held them as infants, they may have wondered whether it was the baby or Windows 95 that had them more excited.

• As kids they may well have seen Chicken Run but probably never got chicken pox.

• Having a chat has seldom involved talking.

• Gaga has never been baby talk.

• They could always get rid of their outdated toys on eBay.

• They have known only two presidents.

• Their TV screens keep getting smaller as their parents’ screens grow ever larger.

• PayPal has replaced a pen pal as a best friend on line.

• Rites of passage have more to do with having their own cell phone and Skype accounts than with getting a driver’s license and car.

• A tablet is no longer something you take in the morning.

• Thanks to Megan's Law and Amber Alerts, parents have always had community support in keeping children safe.

• With GPS, they have never needed directions to get someplace, just an address.

• Java has never been just a cup of coffee.

• Olympic fever has always erupted every two years.

• In their first 18 years, they have watched the rise and fall of Tiger Woods and Alex Rodriquez.

• As they slept safely in their cribs, the Oklahoma City bomber and the Unabomber were doing their deadly work.

• There has never been a national maximum speed on U.S. highways.

• Their favorite feature films have always been largely, if not totally, computer generated.

• They have never really needed to go to their friend’s house so they could study together.

• Kevin Bacon has always maintained six degrees of separation in the cinematic universe.

• A Wiki has always been a cooperative web application rather than a shuttle bus in Hawaii.

• Their parents’ car CD player is soooooo ancient and embarrassing.