The Annual College Freshman Mindset List

[Thebazile78]

For the past 11 years, Beloit College in Minnesota has published a selected list of popular culture references to aid faculty in picking analogies and other cultural touchstones for their incoming freshman classes.

One of the more interesting things the list's authors noted this year was today's college freshman, most of whom were born in 1990, has never known a world without computers everywhere. They're among the first generation for whom everything is digital.

View this year's list (Class of 2012) here:

The Beloit College Mindset List for the Class of 2012 (http://www.beloit.edu/mindset/2012.php)

[ElBoberino]

The class of 2012 has grown up in an era where computers and rapid communication are the norm, and colleges no longer trumpet the fact that residence halls are “wired” and equipped with the latest hardware. These students will hardly recognize the availability of telephones in their rooms since they have seldom utilized landlines during their adolescence.

You mean people had to plug their cell phones into the wall to use them, right?

[Thebazile78]

You mean people had to plug their cell phones into the wall to use them, right?


Try this:

http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/images/rotary-phone.jpg

[hunnerbun]

LOLz...up until 4 yrs ago my moms still had one of these bad boys...

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/31QD2V43CWL._SL500_AA280_.jpg

Ahhh the nights I spent with that cord pulled as tight as it would go, sitting on the basement stairs so I could have a private conversation. Went thru a few cords from having them jammed on the closed door!

[K.C.]

Freshmen??

<object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/-4MhID2-Xgk&hl=en&fs=1"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/-4MhID2-Xgk&hl=en&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object>

[Thebazile78]

LOLz...up until 4 yrs ago my moms still had one of these bad boys...

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/31QD2V43CWL._SL500_AA280_.jpg

Ahhh the nights I spent with that cord pulled as tight as it would go, sitting on the basement stairs so I could have a private conversation. Went thru a few cords from having them jammed on the closed door!

My grandmother finally let hers go when the phone company discontinued rotary dialing. Every time I used the phone there, I had to re-train my fingers to use the rotary.

Grandma now has a retro-look one with buttons where the dial would be; it's only a couple years old.

[joethebartender]

my father had one of those phones on his desk right next to the "portable pc". It's still in his attic. There was nothing portable about it... That case is so big and heavy that there's no way that you could carry it on a plane.

Prodigy account - jbgm29a

"Got any cool BBS numbers in Jersey?"

http://oldcomputers.net/pics/compaq-plane.jpg
http://williambader.com/museum/modem300/07modem300baudtop.jpg
http://oldcomputers.net/pics/compaqI.JPG

[A.J.]

My grandmother finally let hers go when the phone company discontinued rotary dialing. Every time I used the phone there, I had to re-train my fingers to use the rotary.

Grandma now has a retro-look one with buttons where the dial would be; it's only a couple years old.

Sounds like my grandmother.

[Thebazile78]

Sounds like my grandmother.

You do realize that the only reason she switched phones was because the phone company discontinued its support of pulse-dialing, right?

Our poor grandmothers. Forced to change their ways by The Man.