Mindset List

Have you seen the Mindset List (from Beloit College)? It is meant to "look at the cultural touchstones that shape the lives of students entering college this fall."

Just to get you in the right frame of mind to look at the list from when I entered college (2003), I leave you with this picture of me when I was 13.

Don't get confused. I was no Doogie Houser. I didn't enter college at 13. The list below just made me think about being 13.

Take a moment to laugh.

Take a few more moments to laugh. You know you need it. The bangs? The flannel shirt? The eyebrows? Come on. Laugh with me. It's funny stuff.

Anyway. . .

Here are a few items from the Mindset List from my graduating college class (2003):

1. There has always been a woman on the Supreme Court, and women have always been traveling into space.
2. They have never needed a prescription to buy ibuprofen.
3. They were born and grew up with Microsoft, IBM PCs, in-line skates, NutraSweet, fax machines, film on disks, and unregulated quantities of commercial interruptions on television.
4. The moonwalk is a Michael Jackson dance step, not a Neil Armstrong giant step.
6. The term "adult" has increasingly come to mean "dirty."
7. They have probably never dialed a phone or opened an icebox.
9. ET, Gremlins, and The Hulk provided their Halloween costumes and lunch box themes.
10. They were introduced to Kramer on the TV show Friday's.
11. They remember when Saturday Night Live was still funny.
12. They owned and operated a "trapper keeper."
13. They can name at least half of the members of the elite "Brat Pack."
14. They could breakdance, or wished they could.
15. Partying "like it's 1999" seemed SOOO far away.
16. They thought that "transformers" were more than meets the eye.
17. They can, right now, hum the theme to Inspector Gadget.
18. They wore banana clips at some point during their youth, or knew someone who did.
19. They HAD to have their MTV.
20. They actually thought Dirty Dancing was a REALLY good movie.
21. They collected Garbage Pail Kids.
22. They own(ed) cassette singles.
25. Poltergeist freaked them out.
26. They have occasionally pondered why Smurfette was the ONLY female smurf.
28. They wore bike shorts underneath a short skirt and felt stylish, or knew someone who did.
29. They had Swatch Watches.
30. They had WonderWoman or Superman underoos.

Which of these can you relate to?