The current students on East Hill fall into what some writers have called the “9/11 Generation” — men and women who were about 10 years old when the planes hit. Lisa Belkin in The New York Times classifies the 9/11 Generation as “children 10 years ago, old enough to know things were different, but too young to comprehend how completely.”
Many qualities, ranging from constant fear of another attack to apathy about the two wars the United States has entered since 9/11, have been attributed to 18 to 22-year-olds. But Cornell students say their generation is more open and tolerant because of the post-9/11 world.
“Our generation is more curious,” Hana Qudsi ’13 said. “We want to know what’s going on everywhere in the world.”
Qudsi, like many students at Cornell, said she remembers being gathered into a classroom at her elementary school by a teacher and watching the news coverage of the attacks along with the rest of her class.
Looking back on the past 10 years, students say that while the attacks may not have had a significant effect on their day-to-day lives, it has colored how they view other people’s views and beliefs.
“The act of wrapping my head around the events surrounding the attack has made me a different person. It has made me more cautious about judging religious, and especially fundamentalist, cultures,” Aaron Oswald ’14 said.
Original Author: Peter Jacobs