Inside the lives and minds of today's cable-loving, cursive-hating college freshman

This fall's incoming college freshman were born in 1992. The year of the L.A. riots. The year Dan Quayle misspelled "potato." The year that brought us Whoopi Goldberg as a mildly-talented-Reno-lounge-singer-turned-sassy-undercover-nun in the cinematic masterpiece Sister Act. So what should college professors know about the lives and brain contents of...

By Melanie Asmar

August 17, 2010

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This fall's incoming college freshman were born in 1992. The year of the L.A. riots. The year Dan Quayle misspelled "potato." The year that brought us Whoopi Goldberg as a mildly-talented-Reno-lounge-singer-turned-sassy-undercover-nun in the cinematic masterpiece Sister Act.

So what should college professors know about the lives and brain contents of their newest crop of scholars? The annual Beloit College Mindset List offers 75 clues.

Here are our picks for the ten best on the list, illustrated.

10. The artist formerly known as Snoop Doggy Dogg has always been rapping. Thank. The. Lord. 9. Czechoslovakia has never existed. Czech-a-whaaaaat? 8. Fergie is a pop singer, not a princess. A terrible, terrible pop singer.

7. Clint Eastwood is better known as a sensitive director than as Dirty Harry. Ouch. That's gotta hurt.

6. Few in the class know how to write in cursive. But how will they ever find jobs!?! 5. They never twisted the coiled handset wire aimlessly around their wrists while chatting on the phone. Therefore, they have never known the true meaning of happiness. 4. Nirvana is on the classic-oldies station. But thanks to Guitar Hero, they know "Heart Shaped Box" by, uh, heart. 3. Computers have never lacked a CD-ROM disk drive. And "floppy disc" sounds like something out of a Viagra commercial. 2. Having hundreds of cable channels but nothing to watch has always been routine. What do you mean nothing to watch?

1. They have never worried about a Russian missile strike on the U.S. Well, not until they saw Jackie Chan's First Strike on cable. (See No. 2.) Now they're super-worried. They're also super-impressed by what that man can do with a ladder.

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Melanie Asmar is a staff writer for Westword. She joined the paper in 2009 and has won awards for her stories about education, immigration and epic legal battles. Got a tip? She'd love to hear it.

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