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The annual Beloit College Mindset List is something I look forward to…well…annually. If you’re not familiar with the list, it’s a compilation of the social and historical events and mores that will and won’t have shaped the development of this year’s college freshman. In short, it’s a reality check on the experiences that separate generations from each other, courtesy of Beloit College in Wisconsin. The original list, which came out just after I graduated college was utterly shocking to me; today’s list is tame in comparison. Still, the differences prompted me to consider how different these 18 year olds’ formative experiences have been compared to mine.

Mindblowingly, this year’s typical freshman came screaming from his mother’s uterus in 1990. In August 1990, I was getting ready to enter high school, rocking out to Paula Abdul and Bryan Adams, and wondering if Lt. Commander Data would ever learn what it feels like to be human. So to put my 1990 experience in the perspective of these students to be: Paula Abdul is a wacky judge on American Idol, Bryan Adams is confused with Ryan Adams, and the only new adventures Lt. Commander Data has had have been on the big screen. I was in college before they were in kindergarten.

Aside from entertainment and my time line, these kids did not grow up with an arms race and the threat of nuclear war. Instead, their mindset has been shaped by the threat of guerrilla terrorism rather than organized warfare. Indeed, the United States has been the only military power for their lifespan. Their perspective on politics and international relations has been created by a global perspective rather than a streamlined “us against them” perspective where you were either allied with the US, the USSR, or were irrelevant. Superpowers to them are economic, not military. Well, if they think about such things.

Email and instant messenger have always existed for these students as a common means of communication, not just something restricted to geeks. As they go off to college, they will not slowly drift apart from high school friends as written letters and postcards become a greater chore to keep up with. Instead, they will intimately know the details of each other’s lives through social networking sites, even if they don’t communicate directly. Indeed, how many of them will have sent a physical piece of mail, other than perhaps a thank you note to Grandma.

The constant of change affects each generation in ways that are miniscule in the grander scheme of things, though. While the Beloit list emphasizes our differences, it’s also important to remember that we are alike in so many more ways and to not use generational differences as an excuse for poor communication and misunderstanding. While I will always look forward to this list as long as it’s compiled, I will keep in mind that we’re still all people. No matter what, I will always have that as a common starting place with any student I meet.

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