"Ctrl + Alt + Del" Is as Basic as "ABC"

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"Ctrl + Alt + Del" Is as Basic as "ABC"

9/7/2004

By Terry Calhoun

They're baaack. The summer was quiet but too short on campuses around the country. Last week in Ann Arbor the silence was broken and the traffic got unbearable as our students returned, bringing with them the Class of 2007. Luckily--knock on wood if you can find any in your office--even though they still think they can drive and park everywhere, they're back without a repeat of last year's Blaster-, Welchia-, and Nachi-related disasters.

This is the freshman class that has "never gotten excited over a telegram, a long distance call, or a fax." Each of them has "always had a PIN number." And, "'Ctrl + Alt + Del' is as basic as 'ABC.'" As Beloit College humanities professor Tom McBride puts it: "It is a generation which believes in technological innovations and solutions and where digital devices, PIN numbers, and calling cards are an integral part of their lives."

They are different from you and me, and the annual Beloit College Mindset List is here to remind us of that. The Mindset List was begun initially as a way to prepare Beloit College faculty and staff to be more accepting and understanding of freshmen, they say, but I wonder each year if it isn't in fact more a matter of preparing faculty and staff for yet another year of culture shock. After all, who if not us has to handle each year the difficult cultural assimilation of freshly-named adults living away from home for the first time?

Stores have always had scanners at the checkout.

Really. And d'esn't it seem just like yesterday, although in truth it was 16 years ago, and that is a long time ago when you are only 18-years-old, that one of the biggest flurries of negative campaigning in the 1988 election campaign was when it was revealed that the first president Bush was startled to learn that there were automatic scanners at grocery store checkouts. Now, of course, we are about to learn if we can handle implementation of RFIDs and checkouts so automated that they'll seem like magic--except to the class of 2020.

Adam and PC Junior computers had vanished from the market before this generation went online.

Surely that can't be. It seems like just yesterday.

They have always been able to make photocopies at home.

And you can bet they expect that you or your colleagues will be able to help them when the printer-copier-fax machine in their luxury dorm room won't turn on.

Computers have always fit in their backpacks.

And their backpacks have always weighed more than you or I would want to carry around. I'll never understand why the same college student who's carrying a 40-pound bag of books finds it unthinkable to add the "burden" of a bicycle helmet.

And my personal favorite is:

There have never been dress codes in restaurants.

When I decided, more than thirty years ago now, to settle down in Ann Arbor, and vowed never again to live anywhere but a college town, this was one of my primary motivations--to avoid dress codes of all kinds. At some point in the intervening years, dress codes have disappeared from almost every public place and I believe the world is a better place for it!