Swarthmore College Top Questions

Classes are very small, and all professors who I have had a class with know my name. Students usually spend a lot of time studying. I must admit that the education here is geared towards learning for its own sake, because not as much time is spent on real-life situations. The computer science departemnt is very small, but classes are still pretty hard.

Professors and students are so incredibly close here at Swarthmore. I've gone to a few professors' houses to cook and have class over dinner (Just like they said in the brochure!) They all know my name and it's not unusual for students to call professors by their first name. Some classes have even just 8 people. Good for discussion, bad for trying to pretend you did your reading. Discussion is a big part of Swarthmore classes, and it's great here because the classes are small enough so that you'll feel comfortable participating regularly. I've had some classes that were so amazing I would basically walk out the door and have my head explode with all the insight and information I gleaned from that one class. Professors here truly love the material they're teaching, even if it's Faulkner for the 80 billionth time, they literally get excited. One professor actually clapped his hands in glee once during discussion when a particularly salient point was made. The thing is, it's true, Swarthmore academics are really rigorous. I've definitely been in some dark places when finals or midterms collided together. Realize that you need to budget your time wisely or suffer the consequences. And at times, you're going to have to sacrifice your free time and extracurricular activities. And sometimes, bathing.

So far, I haven't really experienced anything that's felt like a "world class education." I took two semesters of Intro Bio, which were huge. The class is split up into labs, where the professor knows your name. Bio 1 was awful because my lab professor was a terrible teacher and also kind of mean-spirited, but I like Bio 2 much, much better. I've also taken Calculus and Stat, which were both typical math classes with limited professor-student interaction (although both professors knew everyone's name). I've taken two semesters of Spanish, which I loved. The languages here are really time-consuming because they meet every day, but so worth it because they really improve your study of the language. Last semester, I took a first year seminar, which was really good and probably my favorite class so far. It was called "Women and Popular Culture" and we studied novels and movies and other media designed for women. The Professor was amazing and I still talk to her to this day. Coming from a high school where I did minimum work for maximum grades, Swarthmore has really taken me down a few notches. I spend a lot of time studying, between 30 and 40 hours a week, aside from class time. Other students also study a lot, but I haven't encountered very many competitive people. Most people compete with themselves to do the best that they can, but usually people aren't concerned about how other students are doing. The education at Swarthmore can be geared toward getting a job. A lot of people, especially Econ majors and Poli Sci majors, and pre-meds, will go on to have great, lucrative jobs and Swarthmore will do whatever is necessary to get them to that point. I get the sense that most people go into some sort of graduate school after graduation to continue learning, but I don't really know that much about it.

The academics at Swarthmore are very good, but given the hype about them incoming freshman should not expect to have a life-changing intellectual experience their first semester. The truly excellent classes (honors seminars, other extremely small and intense classes) are limited to upperclassmen. Students should take a language class at some point as it can be a tremendous fun and is a nice change of pace from paper-writing.

all my professors know my name. my favorite class is a tie between fiction writing workshop because it allows me to explore a side of me that gets lost amongst all those premed courses, or it's religion in america because it allows me to learn about different cultures, which i find fascinating.

tough, tough, tough... there isnt a whole lot of time left in your schedule if you are trying to pull of decent grades

My professors know my name. My favorite class is analysis. My least favorite clas is mathematical methods in physics. Kyle Skolfield does not study al the time. And he is a swarthmore student. class aprtitipation is common. We have intellectual discussions but they are bad. And not ery serious or thought out. But they're fun i guess. We are not competitive except for me wanting to improvise better then soren larson. the most uniques class i have taken is reason power and happiness which is pretty much like what it sounds like. My major department is interesting subjectwise but has mad douches. I spend time with some professors ouside class but some are dead inside so i do not bother. Our requirements are ok. My educations is way pre-professional (said professions being that of a professor) but thet is atypical.

Let me share an anecdote from my first semester bio class. being an intro lecture class, much of the raw material is similar to what many of us saw in ap bio. on the first day of class, one of the lecturing profs took a few minutes to explain why a student ready to take the ap exam with ambitions and expectations of a 5 would fail our final. "In ap bio, you were taught to look at the left side of the elephant. you spent lectures learning all about this side of elephant and hours outside of class studying so that on the ap test, you could draw the left side and impress the graders. Well, in this class, we are going to show you the same left side of the elephant, but our test are going to ask you to explain the right side, the top, the bottom, the front, and the back of the elephant."

Classes here vary. Mainly, keep in mind the size of the school. I love the Bio department, everyone in there is great. But no one specializes in what I want to study. I'd love to do Honors, but I'd have to do honors in an area that one of the faculty is an expert in. And you really don't get much variation of expertise in such a small school.

Participation is a part of most grades here. I think that it is a great way for people to share their perspectives as well as other people to perhaps rethink their own. Profs are approachable and are very nice and enthusiastic about their subjects.