Beloit College Mindset List

Tom McBride, one of my favorite English professors from Beloit College (he could teach Shakespeare like no one else), compiles a “Beloit College Mindset List” each year for his colleagues to help them understand the incoming class and how their culture differs from the professors who teach them. The 2 million students who started college this fall were generally born in 1990. (Oh dear, that’s the year AFTER I graduated from Beloit.)

Some points that stand out to me:

GPS satellite navigation systems have always been available.

Authorities have always been building a wall on the Mexican border.

Caller ID has always been available on phones.

There have always been charter schools.

Students always had Goosebumps.

Bob Moore of Blue Valley Schools in Kansas took the Mindset list a step further in this blog post: Class of 2020. He writes about his own mindset list and the mindset of students entering his school district this year who will become the class of 2020.