Beloit College has released their annual Mindset List, a general explanation of what 18-year-old college freshmen know, think, and have experienced. Here are 10 of the 75 items on the list:

  • They have never had to distinguish between the St. Louis Cardinals baseball and football teams
  • The Soviet Union has never existed and therefore is about as scary as the student union
  • They have known only 2 Presidents
  • A stained blue dress is as famous to their generation as a third-rate burglary was to their parents’
  • “Google” has always been a verb
  • Madden has always been a game, not a Super Bowl-winning coach
  • They have no idea why we needed to ask “…can we all get along?”
  • They have rarely mailed anything using a stamp
  • Most of them have never had the chance to eat bad airline food
  • Television stations have never concluded the broadcast day with the national anthem

The whole Beloit list is here. Also see my column, “When My Daughter Grows Up, Her Life Won’t Include…”