The Class of 2014 Doesn’t Use Cursive — Or E-mail

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© Randy Faris/Corbis

The next class of incoming college freshmen consider Nirvana “oldies” and Clint Eastwood a director. They know Fergie as a Black-Eyed Pea and not a Duchess of York. Get ready to feel old.

Beloit College has released its annual Mindset List, which analyzes the cultural point of view of every incoming college class to provide professors with a frame of reference from which to teach. The list was started in 1998 as a way to help professors avoid dated references, and it continues today as a way to track social history. (See pictures of the evolution of the college dorm.)

The Class of 2014, according to the Mindset List, considers Starbucks, DNA mapping and cooperation with Russians in space as constants that have always been around. They probably have never touched a corded phone. Check out a few more gems below, and see the rest at Beloit’s website. (via AP)

  • 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.
  • The first computer they probably touched was an Apple II; it is now in a museum.
  • Czechoslovakia has never existed.
  • Rock bands have always played at presidential inaugural parties.
  • The nation has never approved of the job Congress is doing.