What Is True For The College Freshmen Of 2015?

Photo Credit: US Department of Education

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 2019, represents those students who were born in 1997. As you can see, this year's list highlights advances in technology, significant world events, and the many ways that today's college students experience the world differently from their parents.

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

• Princess Diana, Notorious B.I.G., Jacques Cousteau, and Mother Teresa have never been alive in their lifetimes.
• Google has always been there, in its founding words, “to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible.”
• They have never licked a postage stamp.
• Email has become the new “formal” communication, while texts and tweets remain enclaves for the casual.
• They have grown up treating Wi-Fi as an entitlement.
• The NCAA has always had a precise means to determine a national champion in college football.
• Cell phones have become so ubiquitous in class that teachers don’t know which students are using them to take notes and which ones are planning a party.
• They have avidly joined Harry Potter, Ron, and Hermione as they built their reading skills through all seven volumes.
• Playhouse Disney was a place where they could play growing up.
• TV has always been in such high definition that they could see the pores of actors and the grimaces of quarterbacks. 
• The proud parents recorded their first steps on camcorders, mounted on their shoulders like bazookas.

Please remember to pray for the 22 million U.S. college students that are starting classes over the next few weeks. They are part of a changing world...and they also have the opportunity to influence how the world changes.