What College Freshmen Don't Know

As throngs of college freshmen prepare to descend upon our fair city, extra-long sheet sets in hand, let us take this opportunity to ponder a few things about the class of 2015: They were born in 1993. They’ve never experienced a world without the Internet. They have never had to use a rotary phone. And they’ve always lived in a world where women kiss other women on TV.

These fun facts and more were compiled by the good wholesome folks at Beloit College in Wisconsin, who just released their annual Mindset List of gee-whiz trivia tidbits about the young whippersnappers who are getting ready to start college. Originally intended to get professors up to speed on what cultural references may or may not be relevant to their students, the Mindset List now serves as a time capsule of sorts, allowing the the rest of the populace to reminisce about how great it was when Cheers was still on TV and when John Wayne Bobbit still had his junk.

Here a few more items topics to avoid if you encounter a freshman, lest you be met with a blank stare:

• Amazon is a website that just happens to share a name with a river in South America.
• Ferris Bueller and Sloan Peterson could be their parents.
• The New York Times and the Boston Globe have never been rivals.
• Communism in Russia? Really, that happened?
• O.J. Simpson had a career as a football player (not to mention a questionable one as an actor) before he became embroiled in the murder trial of Nicole Simpson and Ronald Goldman.

Herewith, a video of more factoids, with a guest appearance by the report’s author Ron Nief, aka the sleepy looking man in a bow tie. Enjoy!