I think our dear president put it best when he posed the immortal question: “is our children learning?” Well, if a survey of Amherst College’s incoming class is any indication, the answer is that they’re learning something—namely, what’s the best darn computing platform around?
The survey, conducted by Amherst’s IT department, found a number of interesting—if unsurprising—facts. For example, 432 of the 438 freshmen had Facebook pages (no doubt the remaining six had already jumped ahead to whatever social networking site is next, ambitious kids that they are).
While the exact platform dynamics weren’t broken down, the survey does note that the tide is shifting from Windows to Mac, saying that the classes of 2011 and 2012 were more likely to own Macs, while the classes of ‘09 and ‘10 were more likely to own Windows machines. Honestly, the only thing that surprises me is class of 2012? That’s a joke, right? Seriously, though, that’s quite a change from my freshman year, when I was one of about three people on our floor of fifty that owned a Mac. Of course we were too busy painting on cave walls and running from sabertooth tigers to care much about computers.
iPod touch and iPhone ownership is up as well, with 93 of the incoming class owning one of the devices. That also means that if you spot a student on campus with one of the two, the likelihood that they’re in the class of 2012 (2012, people—12!) is approximately 1 in 2. No word on how many have iPods, but I’m guessing it would give Facebook a run for its money.
We say time for them to rebrand. What are Amherst College’s colors? Do they have a mascot of some sort? Maybe some kind of badger? Might we suggest a change—the Fighting Macs, perhaps?
The colors are purple and white. Their mascot is the "Fighting Jeff", after Lord Jeffrey Amherst...
Comment 1: Irony - making a grammatical mistake in an article whose first sentence makes fun of somebody for making a grammatical mistake.
Comment 2: What's your deal about the class of 2012? The only thing I can think of is that you think it's way out in future, but the class of 2012 are the freshman who showed up this fall.
What's your deal about the class of 2012?
Oh, it just makes me feel old. Those kids will graduated ten years after I graduated from college. It's like the future!
Irony - making a grammatical mistake in an article whose first sentence makes fun of somebody for making a grammatical mistake.
Huh. I'm not catching the grammatical error; care to be more specific? Found a typo, though!
The typo created the grammatical error.