I Want More Swarthmore

Today was the PENN cohort’s third college tour here on the East Coast and today we went to Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania -- a rather small college that lies off in the wooded countryside not too far from Philadelphia.  Once again we had to use the train system, which is now becoming routine.

The Swarthmore campus was another pleasant relief to the city style of schools in Philadelphia. To our surprise, the Swarthmore campus was the first place we've seen on the East Coat that actually had rolling hills.  Now granted the surrounding area wasn't very hilly, but the campus did offer some really nice gradual up slopes that seem so very rare here.  In addition to the hills, there was also a surprising amount of green.  Green grass, green trees, green buildings, green was everywhere to be found.

For many years now, I never really saw myself attending a small college in a small town.  However, no matter how much I resisted the temptation of denying Swarthmore any credit or consideration, at the end of the day Swarthmore seems like it would be a perfect fit for my personality.  Although it may be a liberal arts college, there was a relatively strong astronomy department with descent physics labs.  On the tour I found out that a literature major was doing some work for an astronomy professor one night and actually found a new planet using the on-site observatory.  I thought that was the fun fact of the day.

For the academics, I found it interesting at how relaxed the grading policy was.  For the first semester of Freshman year, all grades are posted as either a pass or a fail.  This is designed to help relieve stress from beginning college and to prevent over competition for grades.  I am interested in the relaxed nature of the students as well.  Although there is not a huge emphasis on grades, the students are still very passionate about school.  Instead of trying to get the best grades, emphasis is on actually learning the course work.

Although I like to think of myself as being able to master everything, in the end I am actually only slightly better than average at most things.  Swarthmore is a college for students exactly like that. I also love the fact that there is an immense aspect on social life, but at the same time Swarthmore is not a party school.  I cannot stand party schools because they typically have annoying people in them, however, at Swarthmore the so called "party" dorms worst offense was a loud chess match in the commons at two in the morning.  To me, that sounds like the type of fun that I'm into and not the typical class of "college fun".

The only thing that I didn't like about the academics at Swarthmore was the required twenty addition mandatory courses outside of your major.  I supposed that's one of the main components of a liberal arts school though.  I've had my heart set out on physics for years now, but maybe after the physics course at PENN is over I'll have a new interest.  But in the meantime, I will definitely be adding Swarthmore to my college list.  Without the Ivy League Connection I would have never even heard about this school.  Thank you ILC.