Mindset List for incoming High School class of 2017

Flickr, Creative Commons License

Happy first day of school! For us, today marks the first day of the school year and we’re welcoming students into our midst. What are the new kids (the freshmen) going to be like?

Each year Beloit College describes the incoming college freshmen class with its now famous “Mindset List.” I looked around and couldn’t find a high-school equivalent. So here’s one I came up with. This is a description of the incoming high school freshmen class (class of 2017). Note that all of descriptions on Beloit’s college freshmen mindset list apply also to high school freshmen. So here’s my own “high school class of 2017 mindset list.” Enjoy!

  1. The Euro has always existed. So has Sponge Bob Square Pants. And Google, Inc. And the iMac. And Viagra.
  2. Bill Gates has always been worth over $100 billion.
  3. You can talk to them about the Sandy Hook shooting or the Virginia Tech massacre, but they won’t remember anything about Columbine, which happened the year they were born.
  4. Star Wars Episode 1: The Phantom Menace is as much of an ‘old-school’ classic as any of the original Star Wars movies. The movies Fight ClubThe MatrixAmerican PieSaving Private RyanArmageddon, and The Sixth Sense also came out in the years they were born.
  5. East Timor has always been a sovereign nation.
  6. George W. Bush and Barack Obama are the only presidents that they really know. Clinton left office when they were just 2.
  7. Exxon and Mobil have always been the same company.
  8. Movies have always been reviewed by Ebert & Roeper .(Gene Siskel died the year they were born; Roger Ebert just died this past April.)
  9. They won’t have any memories of John F. Kennedy Jr, Dr. Spock, Frank Sinatra, Roy Rogers, or Alan Shepherd, all of whom died just as they were being born.
  10. They have always had their music in mp3 format and used mp3 players (invented in 1998). CD players? SO passé.
  11. Seinfeld closed up shop before they were born.


For more events that happened in 1998 and 1999, visit the wikipedia articles. Please feel free to correct any of my above information or suggest additions!

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