"It’s difficult to unteach old dogs old tricks, and this applies particularly to the creators of The Mindset List, Tom McBride (mcbridet@beloit.edu) and Ron Nief (niefr@beloit.edu). Each year about this time we just naturally start thinking about the world we know and how it compares to the world of this year’s high school graduates preparing to head off to college, voting booths, and other great adventures. Their’s is a different world from their mentors and even from those just a few years older.
Therefore, we offer a few of our thoughts drawn from…
THE 18-ER FILE
If you were born in 2004 and turned 18 in 2022, THEN: (a selection of the full listing)
- Facebook, hatched the same year you were, hasn’t aged as well as you have and is now a platform frequented by oldsters.
- You were born just as the bans on assault style weapons were lifted.
- There’s only about a 50/50 chance that you are convinced going to college is a sound investment.
- You can expect to see the inside of an office with ever less frequency, and won’t hold the same job at the same company for more than a few years.
- You’ve made history, having grown up with both the country’s first black, and first autocratic, presidents.
- You’ve thrived, one hopes, in a world where Blockbuster, Lehmann Brothers, Nokia, Borders, and Blackberries have not.
- If born in Massachusetts, you have always had the right to same-sex marriage as part of your heritage.
For the full listing of the 66 items that help make of the mindset of those born in 2004, visit
