This month, almost 2 million first-year students will head off to college campuses around the USA. Most of them will be about 18 years old, born in 1990 when headlines sounded oddly familiar to those of today: Rising fuel costs were causing airlines to cut staff and flight schedules; Big Three car companies were facing declining sales and profits; and a president named Bush was increasing the number of troops in the Middle East in the hopes of securing peace. However, the mindset of this new generation of college students is quite different from that of the faculty about to prepare them to become the leaders of tomorrow.
Here are some of the aspects that made it to the list:
- Students entering college for the first time this fall were generally born in 1990.
- For these students, Sammy Davis Jr., Jim Henson, Ryan White, Stevie Ray Vaughan and Freddy Krueger have always been dead.
- Harry Potter could be a classmate, playing on their Quidditch team.
- Since they were in diapers, karaoke machines have been annoying people at parties.
- GPS satellite navigation systems have always been available.
- Coke and Pepsi have always used recycled plastic bottles.
- Shampoo and conditioner have always been available in the same bottle.
- Gas stations have never fixed flats, but most serve cappuccino.
- Girls in head scarves have always been part of the school fashion scene.
- As a precursor to “whatever,” they have recognized that some people “just don’t get it.”
- Grandma has always had wheels on her walker.
- WWW has never stood for World Wide Wrestling.
- The Warsaw Pact is as hazy for them as the League of Nations was for their parents.
- Schools have always been concerned about multiculturalism.
- IBM has never made typewriters.
- There has always been Pearl Jam.
- They may have been given a Nintendo Game Boy to play with in the crib.
- Lenin’s name has never been on a major city in Russia.
- Employers have always been able to do credit checks on employees.
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