2014 Mindset List

This week students have started to trickle back to campus; the RA's have already been to the IRC cutting ellison letters, laminating signs, printing in color, and other fun things preparing their dorm environment for new charges to arrive and old friends to return. It wouldn't be a new school year without Beloit College's Mindset list.

"Each August since 1998, Beloit College has released the Beloit College Mindset List. It provides a look at the cultural touchstones that shape the lives of students entering college this fall." -- Mindset List 2014

Here are a few favorites, in no particular order, from the 2014 List:

• Few in the class know how to write in cursive.
• Email is just too slow, and they seldom if ever use snail mail.
• Parents and teachers feared that Beavis and Butt-head might be the voice of a lost generation.
• J.R. Ewing has always been dead and gone. Hasn’t he?
• Having hundreds of cable channels but nothing to watch has always been routine.
• They’ve always been able to blast off with the Sci-Fi Channel.

Oddly enough Beavis and Butt-head, along with the Angry Beavers, were a topic of discussion at a family lunch on Sunday; they were a favorite of my nephews. Despite the fact that Sci-Fi Channel is now SyFy (and home of personal favorites Warehouse 13 and Eureka, but I digress), the list includes interesting points for discussion. See also:

• Beloit College Mindset List, Chronicle of Higher Ed (8/17/10)
• What Your Frosh Don't Know, Inside Higher Ed (8/17/10)
• Beloit College Mindset List: Wear Wristwatch? Use Email? Not for Class of 2014, Huffington Post (8/17/10)