My alma mater, Beloit College, just released its annual Mindset List, an attempt by AARP-eligibles Tom McBride and Ron Nief to gain insight into the minds of 18-yr.-olds.

Students entering college for the first time this fall were generally born in 1990.

For these students, Sammy Davis Jr., Jim Henson, Ryan White, Stevie Ray Vaughan and Freddy Krueger have always been dead.

The Mindset List has had its share of goofiness (my freshman year, I think there was a reference to “dubs”), but aside from the dubious “Martha Stewart Living has always been setting the style” (gag me with a lace-dustruffled dildo), there’s not a lot of shock value here. Maybe I’ll feel differently when it declares “Heath Ledger has always been dead.”

Full list

More potentially-related posts:

1. Feel better, Beloit College kids.
2. And I feel fine.
3. “The King stay the King.”