When I Was Your Age …
By Adam Hunter, special to MSN Tech & Gadgets
Parents recall college life from a simpler time.
I went to college before Facebook.
Yes, it seems so long ago, the first four years of the 21st century. Kids entering college this year never knew a world without the Internet, cell phones and laptop computers. But there was a time even longer ago when teens went off to college with little more than a few sheets of paper and a couple of pencils. How did college students in that Paleolithic era survive such primitive conditions? And what do they think of the brave new world facing college kids today?
College in Cave People’s Times
In 1965, a handsome, muscle-bound 17-year-old Jersey boy named Stephen first walked onto the campus of Ohio State University. That boy would later become my dad. At around the same time, my mom, Carol, entered the University of Bridgeport in Connecticut. Neither had visited their campuses before. Science fiction hadn’t even dreamed up virtual tours.
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Sound Off: What are your nostalgic tech memories?
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“The only things with moving parts that I brought to college were my typewriter and a transistor radio,” my dad says. Mom’s only electronic luxury was a hair dryer—a “bonnet dryer,” like those found in salons today, except portable. Picture a space helmet with a long hose coming out of it, connected to a big box plugged into the wall. “Hand-held blow dryers hadn’t been invented yet,” she says.
My parents weren’t exaggerating. Mabel Freeman, assistant vice president for undergraduate admissions at OSU, graduated in the class of 1966 and paints a similar picture of the grim conditions endured by our collegiate ancestors.
“In the lobby of the residence hall was a television for all of us to ‘share,’ and at the end of each floor in the residence hall would be one or two telephones we could use,” Freeman says. “Next to our typewriters we made sure we had not only a supply of paper but also the necessary carbon paper for the messy copies we made. It sounds a tad prehistoric now, doesn’t it?”
“We would call home collect only once a week because long-distance calls were so expensive,” my dad recalls. “I sent postcards home.”
“I wish we had webcams back then,” my mom says. “That would have helped me be a lot less homesick in college.”
Class of 1970 Princeton University graduate Paul Hagga also remembers his dorm mates sharing one phone. “When you answered the phone there was about a 5 percent chance that it was for you, and an even lower chance that you would deliver the message in an accurate and timely manner if it was for someone else.”
Hagga used his manual typewriter to his advantage. “I was one of about 10 or 20 percent of my classmates who could type, so I made extra money typing papers for 50 cents a page. There were always ads on 3-by-5 cards in the library entrance from typists who would type your papers for you.”
Ron Ghilino graduated from Rutgers University in 1980, and his oldest son starts there this fall. He remembers using giant computers to do his class work. “In the late ’70s, students had to type in data on punch cards, hand it to a technician to run through a reader and wait an hour for it to be processed,” Ghilino says. “Millions of trees died from the volumes of computer paper and punch cards that were needed.
“I commuted to college, and it would have been helpful to have the Internet and e-mail to save me from traveling back and forth for simple meetings and educational resources,” Ghilino says. “It would have saved me hours, if not days, of time over four years.”
Yes, it seems so long ago, the first four years of the 21st century. Kids entering college this year never knew a world without the Internet, cell phones and laptop computers. But there was a time even longer ago when teens went off to college with little more than a few sheets of paper and a couple of pencils. How did college students in that Paleolithic era survive such primitive conditions? And what do they think of the brave new world facing college kids today?
College in Cave People’s Times
In 1965, a handsome, muscle-bound 17-year-old Jersey boy named Stephen first walked onto the campus of Ohio State University. That boy would later become my dad. At around the same time, my mom, Carol, entered the University of Bridgeport in Connecticut. Neither had visited their campuses before. Science fiction hadn’t even dreamed up virtual tours.
____________________________________________________________
Sound Off: What are your nostalgic tech memories?
____________________________________________________________
“The only things with moving parts that I brought to college were my typewriter and a transistor radio,” my dad says. Mom’s only electronic luxury was a hair dryer—a “bonnet dryer,” like those found in salons today, except portable. Picture a space helmet with a long hose coming out of it, connected to a big box plugged into the wall. “Hand-held blow dryers hadn’t been invented yet,” she says.
My parents weren’t exaggerating. Mabel Freeman, assistant vice president for undergraduate admissions at OSU, graduated in the class of 1966 and paints a similar picture of the grim conditions endured by our collegiate ancestors.
“In the lobby of the residence hall was a television for all of us to ‘share,’ and at the end of each floor in the residence hall would be one or two telephones we could use,” Freeman says. “Next to our typewriters we made sure we had not only a supply of paper but also the necessary carbon paper for the messy copies we made. It sounds a tad prehistoric now, doesn’t it?”
“We would call home collect only once a week because long-distance calls were so expensive,” my dad recalls. “I sent postcards home.”
“I wish we had webcams back then,” my mom says. “That would have helped me be a lot less homesick in college.”
Class of 1970 Princeton University graduate Paul Hagga also remembers his dorm mates sharing one phone. “When you answered the phone there was about a 5 percent chance that it was for you, and an even lower chance that you would deliver the message in an accurate and timely manner if it was for someone else.”
Hagga used his manual typewriter to his advantage. “I was one of about 10 or 20 percent of my classmates who could type, so I made extra money typing papers for 50 cents a page. There were always ads on 3-by-5 cards in the library entrance from typists who would type your papers for you.”
Ron Ghilino graduated from Rutgers University in 1980, and his oldest son starts there this fall. He remembers using giant computers to do his class work. “In the late ’70s, students had to type in data on punch cards, hand it to a technician to run through a reader and wait an hour for it to be processed,” Ghilino says. “Millions of trees died from the volumes of computer paper and punch cards that were needed.
“I commuted to college, and it would have been helpful to have the Internet and e-mail to save me from traveling back and forth for simple meetings and educational resources,” Ghilino says. “It would have saved me hours, if not days, of time over four years.”
