Every year Beloit College releases a new College Mindset List. Compiled by a professor and administrator, the 75-item list is a summary of sociocultural entities which the incoming freshman class may take for granted because of their age. The umbrella of topics is broad; some are banal, some insightful, and some simply obvious. A sample, from the newly released list for the Class of 2015: number 12 – “Amazon has never been just a river in South America”; number 73 – “McDonald’s coffee has always been too hot to handle”; and number 37 – “Music has always been available via free downloads.”
To the contemporary student, the litany is at first enticing to peruse. One can chuckle, thinking, “They’re right. Ferris Bueller is old enough to be my dad.” The eldest among us might scoff, in silent undeserved condescension, at how young the 2015-ers are. But when you look at the list for too long, queasiness takes over. It’s not just a barrage of post-1993 trivia. It’s not simply what the authors claim, a “guide to the intelligent if unprepared adolescent consciousness.” Rather, it is a subtle (if not circuitous) way of trying to create a “generation” for today’s college student.
This notion is peculiarly problematic for those of us between 18 and 22. Although we wouldn’t discount any one item on the Mindset List, we are hesitant when asked the question, “What does your generation stand for?” The more pertinent question is, “Are we a generation?”
The second entry for “generation” in the Merriam-Webster dictionary is “a group of individuals born and living contemporaneously.” For our present purposes, the conundrum we’ve encountered is more easily viewed through a McGill lens. Let us apply the definition (with a little flair).
Consider that a McGillian is “born” as he or she first steps onto lower field, or ascends MacDonald’s majestic staircase (side-stepping construction, probably), or slurps tepid Boreale at OAP. And further, “living” is his or her cache of hours spent presiding over exam booklets, coffees outside of Cyberthèque, and the coveted, relaxing spaces in between. For now, I’ll refrain from expanding the metaphor so that graduating is equivalent to dying. Those of us facing the prospect try, often to no avail, to be more optimistic.
Our coexistence (the “contemporaneous” part of the definition) in these pursuits in large part creates a generation at McGill. It is ever-changing, as the tide of students ebbs and flows, but it is energetic all the same. We take every chance we can to vivify this campus generation, through music or dance or camaraderie or romance.
But what is the common denominator? Should this microcosm feel solidarity with others around Canada? Around the world? Alas, when the scale is broadened, we lose clarity, and turn to the one grand idea: we are the Connected Generation. Number 1 on the Mindset List is our proclivity for the “internet ramp onto the information highway.” We flit adventurously around cyberspace searching for our careers, our callings, our intimate encounters — we are not left to our own devices, to congeal like past generations have. We are freer than that.
The absence of a coherent generation for us Connected Informationists shouldn’t be worrisome. It should be a chance for plucking the best out of the campus, shining and brilliant, and enjoying it. And, surely, future commentators will bestow on us some title—as a history professor once put it to me, “They didn’t know it was the sixties in the sixties.”
