Who's coming to work?

Beloit College (located in Beloit, Wisconsin) has since 1998 published what they refer to as a "mindset list". Originally designed as a reminder to faculty to be aware of dated references which their younger students wouldn't understand, its now a testament to the changing understanding of the world that each new generation brings. This year's mindset list chronicles the worldview of the class of 2014 who will be entering the workforce in just 4 short years. Hopefully the economic recession will be a distant memory by then! But for now, here's how the folks at Beloit characterize the latest class of college freshmen (and freshwomen!):

"Born when Ross Perot was warning about a giant sucking sound and Bill Clinton was apologizing for pain in his marriage, members of this fall’s entering college class of 2014 have emerged as a post-email generation for whom the digital world is routine and technology is just too slow.

The class of 2014 has never found Korean-made cars unusual on the Interstate and five hundred cable channels, of which they will watch a handful, have always been the norm. Since "digital" has always been in the cultural DNA, they've never written in cursive and with cell phones to tell them the time, there is no need for a wrist watch. Dirty Harry (who’s that?) is to them a great Hollywood director. The America they have inherited is one of soaring American trade and budget deficits; Russia has presumably never aimed nukes at the United States and China has always posed an economic threat.

Nonetheless, they plan to enjoy college. The males among them are likely to be a minority. They will be armed with iPhones and BlackBerries, on which making a phone call will be only one of many, many functions they will perform. They will now be awash with a computerized technology that will not distinguish information and knowledge. So it will be up to their professors to help them. A generation accustomed to instant access will need to acquire the patience of scholarship. They will discover how to research information in books and journals and not just on-line. Their professors, who might be tempted to think that they are hip enough and therefore ready and relevant to teach the new generation, might remember that Kurt Cobain is now on the classic oldies station. The college class of 2014 reminds us, once again, that a generation comes and goes in the blink of our eyes, which are, like the rest of us, getting older and older."

How this newest class will impact the world of work when they enter it full time remains to be seen, but some of their impressions of the world can perhaps give us an early glimpse:

• Few in the class know how to write in cursive. 
• Email is just too slow, and they seldom if ever use snail mail.
•  Buffy has always been meeting her obligations to hunt down Lothos and the other blood-suckers at Hemery High. 
• “Caramel macchiato” and “venti half-caf vanilla latte” have always been street corner lingo. 
• With increasing numbers of ramps, Braille signs, and handicapped parking spaces, the world has always been trying harder to accommodate people with disabilities.
• A quarter of the class has at least one immigrant parent, and the immigration debate is not a big priority…unless it involves “real” aliens from another planet.
• Clint Eastwood is better known as a sensitive director than as Dirty Harry.
• Colorful lapel ribbons have always been worn to indicate support for a cause.
• Fergie is a pop singer, not a princess.
• DNA fingerprinting and maps of the human genome have always existed.
• Computers have never lacked a CD-ROM disk drive.
• The first computer they probably touched was an Apple II; it is now in a museum.
• Adhesive strips have always been available in varying skin tones.
• Russians and Americans have always been living together in space.
• Nirvana is on the classic oldies station. 
• Children have always been trying to divorce their parents.
• Having hundreds of cable channels but nothing to watch has always been routine.

So to the class of 2014, study hard, and be kind to those of us relics who sometimes yearn for the good old days. And just think, by the time you graduate, Beloit will be putting out the mindset list for the class of 2018 and you'll get to feel old like the rest of us!

To see the complete Beloit mindset list click here.