Swarthmore College Top Questions

It's true that the classes are Swarthmore are generally very tough. There really is a lack of grade inflation; I've been supremely grateful for a B sometimes even after putting loads of work into the assignment. But the relationships with professors and the camaraderie (and lack of cut-throat competition) really makes things seem less bleak. The general enthusiasm of students drives the work forward, and makes things far less painful than they could be if everyone were just pushing for the best grade. It makes the rigorous atmosphere much more manageable when people are excited about the subjects. I really support the distribution requirement system, how everyone has to take three classes in each of the three disciplines. It's driven me to go outside biology and history and other pre-med courses; Contemporary Japanese Visual Culture was an amazingly fun and informative class taught by a fresh, excited, new professor. Sometimes classes draw small groups of students that are just in the class to pass out of the requirement and will run discussions so that they can control the difficulty of the class, but this is rare and usually professors can keep a lid on this sort of manipulation.

Professors know my name. In my biggest lecture class of about maybe about 100 kids, the teacher knew all of us by name by the second meeting. I don't know if she sat and studied names or something but that was pretty cool. Class participation is common--sometimes too common. Sometimes I want to hear the teacher talk, not some student's opinion. If I want to know his opinion, I'll ask him outside of class. That happens a lot and you hear people talking about academia outside of class all the time--in addition to the best tv show ever (Battlestar Galactica) and how to play with Pikachu in the new Super Smash Brothers Brawl. The education seems to be aimed at learning for the sake of learning, not for a job. Which is good because most people (I think) go off to earn graduate degrees.

Professors are generally quite good, though many on tenure are a bit absent minded and can be out of touch with current events and technology. Competition is pretty much under the radar, and some people get quite upset if you start comparing grades. Also, remember that a B is now a pretty decent grade for many subjects. A's in anything are coveted. Engineering is one of the tougher majors in Swat in terms of time commitment and high count of lab courses.

For the most part, all my professors have known my name. My favorite classes are usually dependent on who the professor is. Students tend to study a lot. If they're not studying, they're reading the impossible amount of reading that is assigned. Class participation is common and outside of class, Swarthmore students tend to talk about "intellectual" subjects. Students here aren't competitive with each other in terms of grades (no class rank), but seem to be competitive to do their personal best. I've spent time hanging with professors outside of class--going to field trips, watching a film for class, eating lunch, etc. Though I complain about it, I think that Swarthmore's academic requirements are pretty relaxed. The education at Swarthmore is definitely about learning for its own sake--we're a liberal arts school, we like to read.

academics in swat are soooooooooooo hard!

Heidi is the smartest girl i've ever met in my entire life. She makes me feel stupid sometimes.

So I'm a theater major, where all the professors are called by their first names. So I co-opted this practice into every other class. I got to know a new professor last term, all the while calling him "Dan" (Hey Dan, see you later Dan, what's up Dan, etc). Never once did it strike me odd that that's what I called him. Then someone called him Professor in front of me and I got really worried that I had been disrespectful. But I chalk it up as a quick orientation to the feeling of Swarthmore. Some professors give a distinctly "Professor so-and-so" air, but most are just people who have earned your respect. Chances are you'll earn theirs too. Is class participation common? Is there any class without class participation? Seriously? Swarthmore student have intellectual conversations outside of class. Yes they do. Everywhere. All day. In the middle of a party. Over dinner. On the lawn. At the coffee bars. In the hall outside your door at 4am. Intellectual conversations are a good half of the conversations that happen. And they're normal. And interesting. And engaging. They make Swarthmore Swarthmore.

Though I once had a professor who made it a point to notify us on the first day of class that he would NOT be bothering to learn all of our names, Swarthmore is generally a small, close-knit community where everybody knows your name, or at least what you look like (and everybody remembers the embarrassing thing you did at a Paces party last Saturday, as well). For a small school, a wide variety of classes are offered and studying is a prominent fact of life for many students. Class participation is imperative, especially in small seminars which may only have five or six students. Intellectual conversations outside of class are commonplace, though academic competition is nearly nonexistent. This is not a school where students are selfishly ripping pages out of the books in the library during finals week. Swarthmore is definitely geared towards the pursuit of knowledge (as opposed to the pursuit of a job) but I feel our career opportunities as Swarthmore graduates are plentiful, nonetheless. Swarthmore is also a good place to be for incoming freshmen as there is no specific "core curriculum," and many first year seminars are offered to allow freshmen the opportunity to experience the small class size that is normally offered to upperclassmen only at other academic institutions.

Except in big lectures (~100 students), where students easily blend into a crowd, professors usually know students' names. And since all professors have office hours, it really isn't hard for students to become acquainted with their professors. My favorite class is my Music Theory class. All of the students are taking it because they want to take it, and not because of some requirement. The music classes and major are particularly demanding at Swarthmore because of the great requirements of the department. However, the professors are so clearly passionate about what they teach that students never forget (despite enduring complaints about the workload) why they enrolled in the classes. Students are incredibly smart, driven, interested, and quite intense people.

Academics are excellent, especially if you are planning to be a professional intellectual. Students study like mad, and the professors willingly pile on more work than you can really handle. Personally I favored lecture-style classes (learning from professors), over the more-common discussion format (learning from classmates). Hardly anyone that I knew learned a useful trade at Swarthmore, but we definitely gained lots of knowledge. Knowledge can be just as handy in the real world if skillfully deployed. I only wish that there had been more information about the courses available to take at Bryn Mawr and Haverford that aren't available at Swarthmore (for example, archaelogy).