The Beloit College Mindset List is an informal study conducted each year of incoming college freshmen.  It gives a snapshot of their world and reference point.

If you want to feel old, check out these items which reflect the mindset of the Class of 2010 (most of whom were born in 1988):

• The Soviet Union has never existed and therefore is about as scary as the student union.
• They have known only two presidents.
• They have never heard anyone actually "ring it up" on a cash register.
• A stained blue dress is as famous to their generation as a third-rate burglary was to their parents’.
• DNA fingerprinting has always been admissible evidence in court.
• They grew up with and have outgrown faxing as a means of communication.
• "Google" has always been a verb.
• Text messaging is their email.
• Phantom of the Opera has always been on Broadway.
• Carbon copies are oddities found in their grandparents’ attics.
• Reality shows have always been on television.
• They have no idea why we needed to ask "…can we all get along?"
• Young women’s fashions have never been concerned with where the waist is.
• They have rarely mailed anything using a stamp.
• "So" as in "Sooooo New York," has always been a drawn-out adjective modifying a proper noun, which in turn modifies something else.
• They are not aware that "flock of seagulls hair" has nothing to do with birds flying into it.
• They never played the game of state license plates in the car.
• Sara Lee has always made underwear.
• They never saw Bernard Shaw on CNN.
• Television stations have never concluded the broadcast day with the national anthem.
• They grew up with virtual pets to feed, water, and play games with, lest they die.

I remember, as a freshman in college, being told that they have this "new thing" where the bank gives you a card and you can go to a machine and get money, thereby avoiding the muss and fuss of writing a check and standing in line to see a bank teller.