Swarthmore College Top Questions

Students at Swarthmore are brilliant, Everyone comes from their own backgrounds and ways of thinking, but everyone has the desire to learn to their fullest potential. The students at Swarthmore are generally very friendly, they are open-minded, liberal, intellectual, and willing to share their ideas and thoughts on subjects. They are inclusive and collaborative. All students are bright, determined, and ambitious, and despite the hard course-load Swarthmore gives us people are mostly upbeat.

Friendly, open, and eager to learn both academically and socially.

Despite Swat’s suburban setting, diversity is by no means a foreign or neglected concept for students. As a multi-racial student myself, I am a member of three of the main ethnic student-run clubs: ENLACE (Swat’s Hispanic & Latino organization), SASS (Swarthmore African American Student Society), and SWOCC (Swarthmore Womyn Of Color Collective) which, like many other groups, fit the needs and create inclusive sub-communities for the unique students on campus. While a private institution, the college impressively attracts a wide cross section of young adults, with burgeoning, highly welcomed LGBT, ethnic, geographic and socio-economic groups of students on campus. There is a rather substantial middle and lower class population, and no socioeconomic class is ostracized or patronized as they are well represented. These groups all interact well with the help of some annual events that certain clubs hold for the whole student body, like ENLACE’s Pub Night or DESHI (Swarthmore South Asian Association)’s Mango Lasse get-together or SASS’s Thanksgiving Dinner or SAO (Swarthmore Asian Organization)’s Traffick Light Party. These open events really link these groups to the larger community and allow for a lot of social fluidity on campus. The only rigidity at (least within my class) that seems to prevail is that urban students from the same regions seem to flock together, but that can be because geography coincides with common cultural interest; for instance, in ENLACE, almost every other member seems to be from Bronx, NY! That said, it is hard to feel left out in Swat regardless of your stereotypical social identifier, as everyone is more concerned with your perspective on a given social issue than how many sports you can play or how rich they intend to become someday. By no means does anyone try to artificially impress, and so most students do not attend class or roam campus in anything much fancier than jeans and a tee or sweats. Given the general attitude of acceptance on campus, I’d say the only students who would not feel accepted at Swat are ones who do not care to be challenged about virtually everything. Thus, there are essentially no political conservatives on campus, evidenced by the absence of a Republican club! That said, for diversity’s sake, I would like to see more moderate and conservative thinkers at Swat to provide a more politically accepting and understanding student body.

My classmates are a batch of self-indulgent bourgeoisie oafs with very afffluent parents who have done nothing but nurture their hedonism; therefore, it goes without saying that they are dim and distateful, vapid and shallow, but most of all, they are blindly pretentious.

I cannot describe my classmates in one sentence; no two Swatties are alike. I can list a few words to describe some people I know, but it is important to remember that no word describes the entire population. Some Swatties are open minded, passionate, intelligent, enthusiastic, hard working, quirky, surprising, interesting, deep, a little pretentious, overextended, liberal, and thoughtful.

Liberal, open minded, curious, excited about learning.

Swarthmore's very open to racial, religious, LGBT, and socio-economic groups on campus. I write for the campus newspaper, and sometimes I interview students who have started organizations and groups. So, students are interested in exploring issues and trying to effect positive change in society. Now I should probably bring up again the fliers that were posted in Parrish Hall commenting on the financial aid here. That, I think, is sort of representative of much of the student body. (1) Students are trying to fix problems that they see. (2) But they sometimes try to do this in not the best way. It's certainly good to raise awareness, but the messages have an accusatory tone--they see the financial aid office as somewhat corrupt, unkind to students, and uncaring to students, which might be the case, but you get this sense of ignorance from a lot of students. In other words, I think a lot of students don't really reach out and listen to the other side--they may see themselves as superior and therefore think that other opinions shouldn't really matter as much. The same goes with politics here--a lot of students claim to be liberal, but they aren't open to considering lots of different views--you don't have to accept them, but you should think about them. A lot of students are politically aware, but a lot of them also really don't know what they're talking about. In other words, you see a lot of people supporting Obama but without many clear-cut reasons why. Now, I think most people would have clear-cut reasons, but I want to get the point across that a few people here are annoying and ignorant and really don't know what they're talking about. Some of my high school friends really would feel out of place here--among them, pretty much all the popular kids in high school. You've really got to enjoy learning and be willing to work very hard to like it here, I think, because that's largely what Swarthmore's about, based on my not-even-one semester here. Most students dress relatively poorly to class and don't care. Today, I woke up late and I just woke up, changed, put on a sweatshirt and flip-flops (because putting on socks and shoes would take too long), grabbed my backpack, and was out the door in like 30 seconds. Some dress nicely though, but not many. I don't think different types of students really interact that much, but it's a bit hard to avoid because you see them all the time...I think most people just stick to their friends, and your friends tend to be similar to you.

they are really smart and awkward.

Swarthmore is "diverse" in a very college-y way. There are minorities, LGBT, etc. However, the representatives of those communities don't seem to me to be that representative. I think that's because socio-economic diversity is still pretty lacking here, as everywhere else. Still, it's probably better here than at other private schools. Also, there's very little diversity of political/social thought. I'm mostly liberal, but my problem isn't that people here are liberals. It's that they are unthinkingly so: some are like the Fox News equivalent of the left. So dogmatic, not very critical in their thinking. They mostly have no clue about political issues, and only see things from a strange white-privilege-guilt lens. I think that this hurts a lot of them in the real world. However, it is nice not too have wealth thrown in your face like at some other private schools. Yes, most people here are rich. But they tend to have a humility about it. Socially speaking, I'd say that 65{4a082faed443b016e84c6ea63012b481c58f64867aa2dc62fff66e22ad7dff6c} of students are socially incompetent and were that way in high school, and see Swarthmore as a refuge from that. The other 35{4a082faed443b016e84c6ea63012b481c58f64867aa2dc62fff66e22ad7dff6c} are very competent, mature, just not into being a fratty douche at a party school. These are the people that make this school great. However, I've heard that the admissions office is making the study body much more mainstream. A lot of that has to do with athletic recruiting. Four tables: two of them are awkward kids sitting with people they kind of know, but still feel uncomfortable around, and they'll be like that they're whole lives; one table is the weird sci-fi kids; one table is a good group of friends, who will be friends for a long time.

Intense and passionate.