13 Experiences Today’s College Students Will Never Know That We Did

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Remember when college was all about racing against the clock and figuring out life without smartphones? Back in my day, we were all about those classic TV shows and quirky habits. I mean, who could forget the days when Beverly Hills 90210 was the ultimate teen drama? Fast forward to today, and Beloit College has released its 2019 Mindset List, highlighting just how different the incoming freshman class is from us old-timers.

Each year, an English professor and an administrator at Beloit compile this list, marking what the new students, now born in 1997, have never encountered. Can you believe they’ve never known a world with Princess Diana? It’s wild how much cultural shifts can happen in just a couple of decades. My husband, who teaches freshmen, recently handed out blank envelopes for students to send their exams home. Not one person knew how to address an envelope.

Experiences from the Beloit List

Here are some things that the Beloit list pointed out about the class of 2019: They have always known The Lion King, consider email formal, and have never licked a postage stamp. They also might be clueless about what Amoco used to sell, that Hong Kong wasn’t always under Chinese governance, and that newspapers used to be in black and white.

My Own List of Experiences

I’ve put together my own list of experiences that today’s students won’t have in college that I did:

1. Sprinting across campus to drop off a paper at the professor’s office before midnight.
2. Checking out reserved resources at the library.
3. Debating if the midriff shirt was too high and the boot-cut jeans too low.
4. Twisting the TV antenna to get better reception in the common area.
5. Taking notes by hand instead of typing.
6. Looking up pizza places in the yellow pages.
7. Ordering pizza over the phone while totally stoned.
8. Using a card catalogue in the library.
9. Navigating to school using a paper map.
10. Changing a typewriter ribbon.
11. Using a phone card or making a collect call.
12. Filling out a withdrawal slip at the bank for spending money.
13. Communicating with classmates by writing on the whiteboard on their dorm room door.

Culture inevitably evolves, and with it, some experiences fade. We didn’t have chaperones at mixers, and today’s students will never write their papers on those chunky old Macintosh computers. But it’s hard to imagine them not watching 90210 together in their dorms or writing letters home, even in their wildest dreams.

Further Reading

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In summary, the generational gap is real, and while college experiences may change, the essence of learning and growing together remains timeless.