Today was our first day of the 2007-2008 academic year. Ta da! I met all three of my classes today (Intro Psych, Bio Psych, and Childhood Psychopathology). The latter two are upper division, but my Intro Psych class is mostly freshmen, or as I am told we are supposed to say, “first years.”
I’d like to mark this grand occasion by sharing the top ten of Beloit College’s “Mindset List” for the class of 2011 (born in 1989, if you don’t want to do the math):
- What Berlin Wall?
- Humvees, minus the artillery, have always been available to the public.
- Rush Limbaugh and the “Dittoheads” have always been lambasting liberals.
- They never “rolled down” a window.
- Michael Moore has always been angry and funny.
- They may confuse the Keating Five with a rock group.
- They have grown up with bottled water.
- General Motors has always been working on an electric car.
- Nelson Mandela has always been free and a force in South Africa.
- Pete Rose has never played baseball.
You can read the other 40 items, plus similar points for classes dating back to 2002 at the Beloit site. I’m not sure I like this year’s list as much as previous lists…hard to say why. My favorite was 2003, where they also listed things that the Class of 2003 would understand that the rest of us would not. Humming the theme to “Inspector Gadget?” Bike shorts under a short skirt? Wow, now I feel really, really old!
