Hill, Lillee: Beloit List

The generation gap is very common in higher education.  It can make communication and understanding between faculty members and students challenging.

The generation gap can have a negative impact on the experience of students while in college.  Students want answers to emails right now and text books on iPads.  However some faculty members don't respond to emails instead expecting students to come to their offices during office hours.  IPads in class? Forget about it!  I have a class where I won't even be allowed to take notes on my iPad, and the professor isn't even that old!  I believe the biggest thing that perpetuates the generation gap is technology.  Sure, pop culture gets in the way, but anyone can catch up on pop culture with a quick Internet search.  Technology is a little less easy to catch up on.  I feel technologically behind because the freshmen grew up with computers but my family didn’t have one until I was in high school.  I can understand how faculty members could feel like they are at a loss when it comes to technology; when they were in college, a computer was big enough to fill my living room and people had to use punch cards to operate them. 

The generation gap does not just affect faculty members and students; it can also impact the relationships between traditional and non-traditional students.  I am one of the non-traditional students and can say firsthand that the generation gap is really challenging to get around when dealing with other students.   I was born in 1985 and most of the freshmen class was born in 1993.  That eight year age difference combined with my upbringing frequently leads to me saying "huh" when a freshman is talking to me.  In the comments listed for “The Beloit College Mind-set List Welcomes the ‘Internet Class’” 'drjeff' mentions that they have had cell phones since they were young.  I, on the other hand, didn't get one until after high school.  They can only remember the Space Shuttle Columbia breaking up, but I can remember when the Challenger exploded during lift-off in 1986.  There are so many things that they don't know about, that sometimes I feel extremely disconnected from them.  I know how to use a TV with a dial and rabbit ears, unlike the freshmen, because the first TV we had was an old one given to us by my grandmother which she had had for years in her den.  I have experienced many of the things that my classmates can’t understand or have no experience with.  I can play a vinyl record, which most of them can’t do but I’m sure many of the faculty members remember how.  In fact my parents still have a record player (and I think even an eight track player) in their house.  I’m sure if I have so much trouble connecting to the ‘Internet Class,’ due to the generation gap, faculty members must frequently find it a vast, impassable void.

There are many times when I am at a loss for how to relate to the freshman class due to the generation gap.  I am sure that the faculty members must feel this way about all of us.  Many of them can remember the fire in the Apollo 1 craft that killed the crew.  That makes three American space related disasters in their lives, two in mine, and only one for the freshmen class.  Events such as those shape our lives and how we see the world.  The generation gap shapes how we express what we see in our lives and the world.