10 observations about college freshmen to make you feel old

Beloit College released its annual Mindset List, which offers a variety of observations about incoming freshmen so faculty can better understand them—or so they can at least know how much they won’t understand the students.

Here are some highlights from this year’s list:

• They have always lived in cyberspace, addicted to a new generation of “electronic narcotics.”

• The Biblical sources of terms such as “Forbidden Fruit,” “The writing on the wall,” “Good Samaritan,” and “The Promised Land” are unknown to most of them.

• Robert De Niro is thought of as Greg Focker’s long-suffering father-in-law, not as Vito Corleone or Jimmy Conway.

• Bill Clinton is a senior statesman of whose presidency they have little knowledge.

• They have never seen an airplane “ticket.”