Yesterday, Beloit College released its Annual College Mindset List.

Ever since 1998, the list has helped us understand exactly where the current freshman (2018) class is coming from.  (You can check out the webcast here.)

The initial purpose of the list was to alert aging faculty to beware of hardening of the references–that the students we are teaching just may not get our residual boomer context.

According to the list, the class we’re currently dropping off on campuses all over the country this week, has always relied on news from The Daily Show, believes that selfies are cooler than autographs, and experiences the validation of their likes on their Facebook pages.

For me, the most haunting of the reminders is the first: during their initial weeks of kindergarten, they were upset by endlessly repeated images of planes blasting into the World Trade Center.