A sneak peak at this year’s freshmen entering college

Want to know what the new college freshmen at New Mexico Tech have never experienced? Or have always known? Want to feel old?

Well, it’s that time of year again. It’s time for the Class of 2028 Mindset List.

The year was 1998 and a witty college professor at Beloit College (Wis.) wanted to reflect the world view of entering first year students at this small Midwest private college.

Ron Nief, the director of public affairs at Beloit College, created the list called “The Mindset List” to remind college professors to “watch your references” when talking to college freshmen. It started with the class of 2002, for students born in 1980. In later years, Nief teamed up with Tom McBride, an English professor, to help create the yearly list. Some say the duo should be hailed as “America’s cultural timekeepers.”

I was introduced to “The Mindset List” several years ago by a former managing editor and I have enjoyed reading it every year since.

Beloit College turned over the reins of the mindset this to Marist College in Poughkeepsie, N.Y. This year’s list was published last week by the zany Marist College professors, and I’d like to share a few favorites from “The Mindset List” for the Class of 2028:

For this generation of college freshmen, they have never shared the planet with Betty Freidan, Shelley Winters, or Kirby Puckett.

The word “Friend” has always been verb and the word “tweet” was always a click.

Barack Obama was elected … to the Senate and terrorists thrived from India to Iraq. You could watch a video on your wrist although people were still going to Blockbuster stores.

People started making bucket lists and Britan’s Prime Minister was fading out of the picture.

And that meal in the college dining room cost $5 when they were born, now costs about $7.79 today.

Here’s some other interesting facts about those students starting their freshman year at colleges across the country and the great state of New Mexico:

• George W. Bush did not begin to be popular again until they were 10 years old.

• American Idols have always needed two nights a week.

• The year they were born was the last when Mom and Dad were getting red-packaged movies in the mail.

• As infants, they might have been scared by hoodies or oversized sunglasses but wouldn’t have noticed low-rise jeans or crop tops.

• Enron had always been in courtroom in deep doo-doo.

• Yet another Beatles break-up: Paul and Heather

• Comet dust has always been retrieved and brought to earth for us to study and admire.

• NASA has always been keeping a close eye on Pluto … just in case.

• Iran has always had low-grade enriched uranium.

• Montenegro has always been an independent state.

• The US Armed Forces have never been in Iceland.

• North Korea has always been doing nuclear tests.

• Northern Ireland has always been devolving.

• New English words have always included “bucket list” and “crowdfunding.”

• A film about a dysfunctional family and child beauty pageant has always earned 12 times what it should cost to make.

• Housewives have always been desperate … and real.

• You’ve always been able to generate your own brilliant internet content.

• Finally, cell phones turned us into mindless beasts, or so Stephen King would have us believe.