Welcome to Fall 2008

Hello all -- and welcome back to the blog for the Fall 2008 academic semester. I have a shipload of items from the summer months to post. Starting things off is a look at the 2008 The Beloit College Mindset List. As notedon the website:

This is the 11th year that Beloit College has assembled these observations that help to identify the experiences that have shaped the lives–and formed the mindset—of students starting their post-secondary education this fall (2008).

The Mindset List is not a chronological listing of things that happened in 1990, the year they were born. It is instead an effort to identify the worldview of 18 year-olds in the fall of 2008. Of course, our students come from many backgrounds and different traditions and these generalizations may not apply to all. The list identifies the experiences and event horizons of students and is not meant to reflect on their preparatory education.

It is also not deliberately designed to make readers feel really old!

And make us feel old it does indeed -- my personal feeling old moment came a few years ago when I met with an entering student who was born on the same day I graduated high school! It's all been downhill since then ...

Anyway - here are some hi-lites from the list of special interest to the readers of this blog:

• Since they were in diapers, karaoke machines have been annoying people at parties.
• They have always been looking for Carmen Sandiego
• GPS satellite navigation systems have always been available
• Electronic filing of tax returns has always been an option
• WWW has never stood for World Wide Wrestling
• IBM has never made typewriters (Big Blue!)
• They may have been given a Nintendo Game Boy to play with in the crib
• Windows 3.0 operating system made IBM PCs user-friendly the year they were born
• The Royal New Zealand Navy has never been permitted a daily ration of rum (thank goodness we don't have that problem!)

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