Incoming freshmen never had chicken pox

The class of 2017 has never had chicken pox, is more likely than their Baby Boomer parents to have borrowed money for college, and will seek college majors that lead to high paying jobs, according to the annual Beloit College Mindset List.

In a renewal of campus tradition, Charlie Shub, professor emeritus, College of Engineering and Applied Science, recently shared the annual peek into the mindset of the freshman class. Though retired, Shub said colleagues had encouraged him to share the work of Beloit College’s former public affairs director Ron Nief and humanities professor Tom McBride.

Since 1998, McBride and Nief have reminded those who work with freshmen that the students in their classrooms have had different experiences than previous generations, thanks in part to technological advances or the passage of time.

Examples from this year’s list of observations about entering college students, most of whom were born in 1995, include

• Dean Martin, Mickey Mantle, and Jerry Garcia have always been dead.
• Eminem and LL Cool J could show up at parents’ weekend.
• hey are the sharing generation, having shown tendencies to share everything, including possessions, no matter how personal.
• GM means food that is Genetically Modified.
• As they started to crawl, so did the news across the bottom of the television screen.
•  “Dude” has never had a negative tone.
• 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• They could always get rid of their outdated toys on eBay.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.
• The U.S. has always been trying to figure out which side to back in Middle East conflicts.
• A tablet is no longer something you take in the morning.
• Threatening to shut down the government during Federal budget negotiations has always been an anticipated tactic.
• The Pentagon and Congress have always been shocked, absolutely shocked, by reports of sexual harassment and assault in the military.
• Spray paint has never been legally sold in Chicago.
• Americans and Russians have always cooperated better in orbit than on earth.

To see the full list, visit http://www.beloit.edu/mindset/2017/

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