<p>Here are my middle-aged reactions; what are yours?</p>
<ol>
<li><p>I till think of the PSATs and SATs on a 1600 point scale</p></li>
<li><p>Schools I never heard of until now–Elon, James Madison–are described as haivng been “hot” for decades</p></li>
<li><p>My Ivy League class had very few Asians</p></li>
<li><p>When I was in college, the head basketball coach of Duke thought moving to Penn was a great career step</p></li>
<li><p>I had never heard of GPAs over 4.0</p></li>
<li><p>Miami would take any kid who applied and no one bothered to say they went for marine biology, rather than partying</p></li>
<li><p>No school would dare tell parents it used a 6 year graduation rate</p></li>
<li><p>My $4000 a year tuition was among the most expensive in the country</p></li>
<li><p>Private college placement consultants did not exist</p></li>
<li><p>I never saw a sald bar in a cafeteria, much less sushi</p></li>
</ol>
<p>The cafeteria regularly served “mystery meat” for supper.</p>
<p>None of my dorm rooms were air conditioned.</p>
<p>Registration involved numerous slips of paper.</p>
<p>I had to learn how to keypunch cards for my first programming class.</p>
<p>The computer data for my honors project was stored on giant Mission Impossible tape reels that I was never allowed to touch. And my computer jobs had to be run between 3–5 AM every night.</p>
<p>^ Ha, my college experience was pre-internet.</p>
<ol>
<li><p>By working weekends and summers as a cook, I was able to pay my own way through college and graduate debt free. All my other friends in college paid their own way through with summer jobs. It was all very affordable.</p></li>
<li><p>I played my first computer game in college: “Adventure.” I played in a room filled with washing-machine-sized computers and no screens. I entered responses on a keyboard and received the results on a printout.</p></li>
</ol>
<ol>
<li><p>I applied to one school…the one I wanted to go to.</p></li>
<li><p>My parents drove me to drop me off at school. And only got out of the car to take out my bags and give me a hug. Then drove off. Like all the other parents.</p></li>
<li><p>College tour? Whats that?</p></li>
<li><p>two words: keypunch cards</p></li>
<li><p>I wrote my parents LETTERS. Phone calls were too expensive.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>My first computer game (a Star Trek game) was back in high school, but was played on the
mathematics department’s mainframe at Madison College (now know as James Madison University), where my dad was the chair of the department. We had advanced equipment though: Rather than having to wait for a printout, we had teletype machines connected to the mainframe via acoustic couplers that always reminded me of Mickey Mouse ears.</p>
<p>No one <em>prepped</em> for the SAT.
Registration for classes involved pouring through the course booklet and making class schedules on scrap paper for hours. We marked our sheet, stood in line and hoped for the best.
Cable TV? ha.
The computer was some monstrous thing in a big building. Keypunch cards were required.
People used to make money typing papers.
The college visit occured on move-in day.
Rooms were furnished with <em>stolen</em> milk crates (real ones) and we used cinder blocks and boards for book shelves.</p>
<p>The other reason CC makes me feel ancient has nothing to do with my past college experience. It’s just that my 4th and last child is graduating this year, while some of you are sending your 1st off. And someone casually mentioned they have one in 1st grade! :eek:</p>
<ol>
<li>My roommate and I each had a radio. Friends down the hall had THE stereo and THE tv.</li>
<li>Bathroom was down the hall.</li>
<li>My friends from other colleges were jealous because our dorm room had a phone.</li>
<li>My brother drove me down to the college to check it out, I liked it so I just decided to go there.</li>
<li>It was a huge deal when my sorority house got HBO.</li>
<li>Few of my friends had cars at school.</li>
<li>Apartment style dorms? What is that?</li>
<li>My roommate took a computer class in the summer session so no one would know she was in a class with the nerdy guys.</li>
<li>Cafeteria served “mystery meat”, no salad bars, pasta bars. etc.</li>
<li>I went out on Thursday night on one dollar. That was 90 cents for 2 beers and a dime if I needed to make a call. ( and I was “legal”).</li>
</ol>
<p>JustAMomOf4, I still <em>have</em> my stolen Shenandoah’s Pride milk crates and H and I still have the cinderblock and board bookcases (in S’s room and in the basement)!</p>
[quote]
People used to make money typing papers.<a href=“Raises%20hand.”>/quote</a></p>
<p>Our cafeteria served ONE dinner choice. If you didn’t like what was for dinner, you could make yourself a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. This, at one of the more expensive and selective LACs in the country. </p>
<p>All undergrads could drink beer in the campus pub.</p>
<p>No one I knew ever talked about what they were going to do when they graduated, or how much money they were going to make. Internships were almost unheard of. You were at college to study (and to party). Later on you’d worry about your career.</p>
<ol>
<li> You filled out your applications by hand. They couldn’t have been more than 5 pages long. Your parents certainly didn’t oversee anything you wrote. </li>
<li> You just didn’t sweat getting in. If you were a good student with good SAT’s and enough extracurriculars to prove that you could walk and chew gum at the same time, you knew you’d get into at least one good school.</li>
<li> Your parents drove you up, dropped you off and had zero contact with the school except for mailing in the tuition checks. They wouldn’t have thought to contact the school, much less professors, RA’s …</li>
<li> The new freshman week consisted of one campus get-together for the new students to mingle. After that, you were on your own. No pre-week summer programs, no special departmental luncheons, no nothing.</li>
<li> Only a handful of kids had a TV. (I was one.) It was one of those small black and white TV’s where you adjusted the dial up and down versus clicking. A theatre major I knew had an actual VCR. She must have been loaded.</li>
<li> This is sorority-specific, but we had “callers” (men) and “visitors” (women). You were paged overhead: “Mary, you have a caller in the foyer.”</li>
<li> You ate your meals at normal breakfast, lunch, dinner times. If you missed a meal, you went without (unless you found a vending machine). There weren’t coffee shops with lattes and muffins every 30 feet. </li>
<li> If you were thirsty, you drank from a water fountain.<br></li>
<li> If your parents really loved you, they gave you an electric Smith-Corona. And if you typed a paper and discovered an error – you ripped up the paper and re-typed the whole thing. That’s why entrepreneurs such as myself charged $2 / page.</li>
<li> You called your parents by placing a collect call and asking for yourself. Your parents refused the charge and then called you back. This was on Sundays. Rates were lower then, of course.</li>
</ol>
<p>Parent sez-
-The only way to talk on the phone privately was to get a 20 foot phone cord and snake it down the hallway to the stairwell or laundry room to talk.
-Men only allowed on the dorm floors from 5-10pm Friday, 3-10pm Sat, 3-8pm Sun. and it was strictly enforced. To avoid getting caught with a man in your room-guys jumping out windows of lower floors.
-If you returned back to the dorm after 1am you had to wake up the house mother to unlock the front door to let you in-walk of shame.
-Job cleaning test tubes in the chem lab paid $1.55/hour.
-Legal drinking age 18 years old.
Writing checks for"Cash" to avoid explaining to your parent the $$ spent at “Keg Land.”
-Not worrying about getting a job after college-the world was theirs to conquer-they were college graduates, often the first in their family.
-Having to retype whole pages because no correction fluid or tape allowed to cover mistakes.</p>
<p>"7. You called your parents by doing a reverse phone call and asking for yourself. Your parents refused the charge and then called you back. This was on Sundays. Rates were lower then. " - Ha! Remember that!</p>
<p>I found out my freshman roommate in August and then we furiously sent letters through the mail, hoping one of us would have a little TV (not) and comparing our clock radios…</p>
<p>Hitchhiking - we lived about 20 miles from our state university. One of my brother’s didn’t have any money, moved back home and hitchhiked to school the entire semester.
My mother would routinely pick up hitchhikers - even with small kids in the car.</p>
<p>Ahhhh yes, remember the stereos! They were huge, complicated electronic equipment with turntables and sometimes tape decks. Bigggggg speakers. </p>
<p>When I was in college lots of comuters had dogs. Their dogs would follow them around campus and wait outside while they were in class. I don’t think colleges allow dogs anymore.</p>
<p>1) The phone was down the hall at the reception desk
2) The college cleaned our suite bathrooms
3) You stood in a big long line with a piece of paper waiting your turn to register for classes and usually at least once each summer someone would faint
4) There was one dining room and it was only open for a few hours for breakfast, lunch and dinner
5) No co-ed dorms let alone co-ed bathroooms
6) Computers - not sure if we had one, if we did very few knew about it
7) If you owed a typewriter and could actually type you could make money
8) If you had a stereo others would come to your room
9) If you had a TV which was rarer than a stereo, chances are it was still B/W
10) A pitcher of beer was less than $2 (can’t remember how much less…but we could pay for it with quarters) and everyone was old enough to drink except for one or two kids that were young and everyone knew who they were and they were always in the library</p>