As a professor in a graduate program in college student affairs, the author thinks of herself as an expert on the college experience. For the past 12 years, she has taught courses and conducted research on college students, their learning and development, the campus environment, and trends in higher education. Like any good scholar, she makes it a point to stay abreast of new developments in her field, including changes in demographics, social trends, and public opinion, and the ways in which such changes shape distinct generations of college students. As a result, she is familiar with both the research and the conventional wisdom about the current generation of college students, generally referred to as the millennial generation. In this article, the author discusses how the process of sending her own son off to college influenced her thinking about what it means to understand today's undergraduates. (Contains 4 notes.)