Hamilton, Josh: Beloit List

We live in a time period of great change. The difference between the lives of those that lived in the 1970s and now is astounding. Technology, morals, religions, economies, and even countries are rapidly adapting before our eyes. With all these different factors we might as well say that one generation was literally born in a different world from another. One such comparison of generations would be the faculty and students of higher learning education facilities.

            

 Back in “the good ol’ days” teachers and students were required to see each other. If they didn’t then they would probably not be getting a very high quality education, and it seems that students would be wasting their money. Nowadays though, distance learning is becoming more and more common. Rather than being tied to a classroom, teachers and students have the luxury of taking their classes practically anywhere, because as portable computing devices are now more powerful than anything that existed back in the 20^th century.

Time has an uncanny ability to speed itself up the longer it progresses. This is made especially evident in the progression of years between the 1970’s and 2011. People today seem to be in a huge rush. They have an infinite amount of things to do within a finite period of time, so everything has a sense of urgency. This sense of urgency often couples with a lack of a need for perfection. In the past doing things right was often seen as much more important than meeting a rushed deadline.

             

Language has also changed slightly. Words are no longer used to express the same meaning. 
"Well, uh, he meant to make the report, like, really good, but, uh, he didn't have time." (Belim) Sentence fillers such as like, uh, and um are running rampant. Not only are sentence structures being modified, though, but also words themselves. “Wii” is no longer assumed to be an exclamation of elation, but rather a noun of itself.

Getting satisfactory grades only is no longer acceptable. Gone are the days when merely passing a course was something to be excited about. In the current competitive global environment GPAs may as well be tags worn on our sleeves. They are something everyone is going to look at and they are not better than those of the other thousands of competitors any opportunity previously hoped for is lost.

The world has become a much more luxurious place, although some may not feel that way. Bottled water, baristas, McDonald’s coffee, and free music downloads are just a few things that were not nearly as available in the past, that is if they even existed!  These are things so common that they are nearly unnoticed, but if they were to disappear suddenly there would be a big impact.

One subject that is the source of bitterness to some is money. It is not at all surprising that money be the cause of bitterness. Present day faculty members are asked to do more work than their predecessors without appropriate pay. That is to say, they’re working too hard for the money they are earning. Not only do they still do the work faculty members did in the past, they must now perform new duties as well. Their bitterness is definitely understandable.