Naming generations is something we like to do in the United States. However, "generation" is a rather slippery term and tends to be defined in two different ways. One is chronological, the group of people born at a common moment in time. The second is experiential, the group of people who live through common momentous events, including wars, political reigns, technological advances, disasters, and economic shifts. There is a good deal of overlap in the two definitions, though the second obviously includes a broad range of age groups.

This book uses both approaches. For the most part, it is a volume about a chronologically defined group of young people born in the 1970's and early 1980's who have attended college in the mid-to-late 1990's. However, periodically the focus shifts to the experiential to include all of the students attending college during the mid-to-late nineties regardless of age.