Clueless Students

Posted on August 23, 2008

It’s that time of year again — back to school. Beloit College (Wisconsin) always makes it interesting for us as they examine the lives and culture of the incoming students.

They don’t do it trying to be nosy but to see what the thoughts, beliefs, hopes. etc. of the incoming freshman class really is. That provides an opportunity to make adjustments from an administrative standpoint to best accommodate these young peoples’ needs.

This is the eleventh year of what they call the Mindset List. This list helps the oldster realize that the kids are totally clueless about most of the things we take for granted. If you’re 50 for instance, think of all the things and people that have come and gone in the course of your lifetime. To you, everybody knows about the same things. When you encounter a young person that doesn’t, you have a tendency to think they are just out of touch with reality and are living in their own little world without paying attention to what’s going on around them. In reality, much of what you know they would find out about from history books.

I’ll share but a few of the things the 18 year old thinks has always been or doesn’t know about and link to the whole list here.