Lee, Terence: Beloit List

The Beloit College Mindset List, authored by Tom McBride and Ron Nief, was created at Beloit College in 1998 to reflect the worldview of entering first year students. At first, the list was a witty way of teling faculty members “watch your references.” Now, The Beloit College Mindset List has turned into a ubiquitous guide, requested by thousands of readers and reprinted into hundreds of print and electronic publications. Numerous differences lie between older faculty members and today’s students, however, several similarities still exist despite the ever growing generation gap.

Faculty members born before 1980 grew up during a time when ‘like’ represented the beginning of a simile, rather than a piece of verbal confetti. Today’s students, apart from using ‘like’ at the beginning of a simile, use ‘like’ in their everyday conversations as replacements for phrases like ‘for example’ or ‘in this way’ The widespread use of ‘like’ has propelled its misuse and resulted in countless grammatical errors in written and spoken English. This clearly highlights the verbal differences between older faculty and today’s students.

What is the first thing that comes to mind when the word ‘Amazon’ comes up? Older faculty might know it as the world’s largest river in South Africa. Today’s students know ‘Amazon’ as the largest online retailer. Amazon.com, starting off as an online bookstore, soon diversified, selling DVDs, CDs, MP3 downloads, computer software, video games, electronics, apparel, furniture, food, and toys. With the presence of the Internet, it is undeniable that over time, people will recognize ‘Amazon’ as the world’s largest online retailer rather than the world’s longest river.

To older faculty members, ‘blackboard’ once had a literal meaning. It meant a black chalkboard used in classrooms for teaching. Today’s students know it as a virtual learning environment and course management system. Developed by Blackboard Inc, The Blackboard Learning System, features a customizable open architecture and a scalable design that allows for integration with student information systems and authentication protocols. Today, when the word ‘blackboard’ is mentioned, students immediately assume that it meant the Blackboard Learning System, not the old-fashioned chalkboards.

Despite the countless differences that lie between older faculty and today’s students, several similarities remain. Education still remained the same. Online classrooms may have provided students with an easier way of accessing education, but formal and informal has changed little. Despite the years that have passed and the presence of the Internet ramp onto the information highway, people still had to learn the same things if they wanted to become doctors, dentists or engineers. New methods for learning may have surfaced, but what is learnt has remained the same.

The Information Age has brought forth the existence of E-books. However, today’s students, similar to older faculty members still preferred old-fashioned books to e-books. For over 500 years, books have always been the most widespread means for education. Whether it was educational books or fictional books, the e-book has not yet overshadow the printed books. Similar to older faculty, the majority of today’s students still preferred books to E-books

The Beloit College Mindset List has opened readers’ eyes to the ever growing gap between older faculty members and today’s students. However, several similarities between them still remain. Even though the Internet ramp has provided a new way onto the information highway, there will still be certain aspects to education that will remain unchanged. But who knows, with the passing of every year comes the invention of newer and more advanced technology while old words and phrases are used to mean something different. The only thing that everyone can do is to learn and  adapt because despite our growing age, there is never a time in life that we stop learning.