13 Experiences Today’s College Students Will Miss That We Cherished

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Hey there! Remember those college days when we raced across campus to get our papers turned in on time? It’s wild how much has changed since then. As I was reminiscing, I stumbled upon Beloit College’s “2019 Mindset List,” which highlights just how different today’s freshmen are from us. The incoming class was born in 1997, and they’ve never even known a world with Princess Diana! It’s a bit of a wake-up call to see the cultural gap between generations.

I often find myself shaking my head at how our experiences have shifted. For example, my friend Jake, who teaches college freshmen, once handed out blank envelopes for them to mail home their exams, and none of them knew how to self-address them! Here are a few things that the Beloit list revealed about the 2019 class: they’ve never known life without “The Lion King,” they think emails are formal, and they’ve never licked a postage stamp. Crazy, right?

Here’s my own list of things today’s students won’t get to experience that we did:

1. Sprinting to drop off a paper in a professor’s office before midnight.
2. Checking out reserved materials from the library.
3. Wondering if a midriff shirt was too revealing or if low-rise jeans were a bad choice.
4. Adjusting the TV antenna for better reception in the common room.
5. Taking notes the old-fashioned way—by hand!
6. Looking up pizza places in the yellow pages.
7. Ordering pizza over the phone while totally stoned.
8. Using a card catalog at the library.
9. Navigating campus with a paper map.
10. Changing a typewriter ribbon.
11. Using a phone card or making collect calls.
12. Filling out a withdrawal slip at the bank for pocket money.
13. Communicating with classmates by writing on their dorm room door.

Times change, and so do experiences. We didn’t attend college with chaperones at social events, and today’s students won’t be typing essays on those bulky old Macs. But I can’t help but think that somewhere along the line, they might miss out on things like binge-watching “90210” with their dorm mates or writing heartfelt letters home, even if it seems like a distant dream now.

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To summarize, the college experience has evolved significantly over the years. While today’s students may miss out on some of our cherished traditions, they’ll create their own unique memories that reflect their times.