Social Swarthmore

Today we visited Swarthmore. We walked to the train station, took the train for about 25 minutes, and arrived on campus. While waiting for the train, we saw a groundhog. Due to the train schedule, we were about 45 minutes early, so we had breakfast at a diner called Vicky's Place. I had a bunch of French toast; it was absolutely delicious. However, they coated it in powdered sugar and gave me 3 large things of maple syrup along with 5 things of butter. I used just a third of one thing of syrup and no butter. The meal was delicious. It was about the same level of humidity today, and about as hot, which means that it felt as if somebody has dipped a blanket in boiling water and wrapped it around us.

An outdoor amphitheater, in which the freshman have a
ceremony at the beginning of the year

We then went to the tour, and after that an information session. During these, I noticed and learned several things. Swarthmore is a 400 acre campus, but only about 200 of those are developed. The interiors of the building are extremely nice. They feel spacious and good for relaxing in. The library has only 1 million books. There are wide expanses of lawn. I liked the rurality level of Swathmore. It wasn't in a city, and it had places to walk around it, but it did have a small town supporting it and the transportation network made it easy to get to Philadelphia or other large cities. One of my favorite parts about Swarthmore was what I learned about the social life. The Winter Formal is done as the Yule Ball, from Harry Potter. They have an active Quidditch team. Parties are open to all, but there is also the option of nerf wars. It seems like a great place for me socially. Unfortunately, I did not like their academics quite so much. They have a giant liberal arts focus, with fewer classes in the sciences than I would prefer. They do not even have a course in Ancient Icelandic.

A tower that the seniors are allowed
in at the end of their year

The main strength that Swarthmore has is that it really focuses on having students discover what they want to learn on their own. The first semester of freshman year is pass/fail, so that you can try out new courses free of worry about them hurting your GPA. Swarthmore doesn't even calculate your GPA for you. They focus instead on learning. I really like this, because college shouldn't be about grades. It should be learning. Much of the time in high school, I see people taking AP classes not to learn the subject better, but to increase their GPA. I feel that grades and test scores have become too large a part of school. They are tools used to measure learning, but one should not lose track of the fact that learning is the true goal. With a pass fail system in the first semester of freshman year, Swarthmore lets students escape from grades. You have the opportunity to adjust and learn worry free. Grades can be an important motivator and indicator of progress. Teachers at Swarthmore take the time to really talk with you and help you. Still, the academics are a weakness of Swarthmore. Overall, I like the campus better than that of Penn, but in terms of general preference, Swarthmore comes behind both Penn and Princeton.

Next on the agenda was lunch. I had pizza and a milkshake, and then it was time for the train. Right as the train arrived, a squirrel dashed across the tracks, barely avoiding the oncoming train. After the ride back, we visited the college bookstore. I found a The Legend of Sigurd & Gudrun, by Tolkien. It is Tolkien's retelling of the great legend of Norse antiquity. Though it cost nearly $20, I am excited to read it. After that, we went back to our hotel room for a break until dinner. For dinner, we went to Distrito, a mexican restaurant. The owner/head chef is an Iron Chef on some TV show. The food was excellent. We ordered several platters and shared them around. The dessert was phenomenal as well.