I was drawn to Swarthmore in part for its small size, which was supposed to mean close interaction between students and professors, and a sense of community. I do get those here. But after a while I think most people here daydream about having just one day when they can experience going to a big university, or at least a bigger school than Swarthmore. I've certainly thought about it. Swarthmore's smaller than my high school in population--that might be one reason why I wonder what it'd feel like. You do see the same people over and over, which is both good and bad--bad because you might get sick of it and just want to see more new people from time to time, and good because you do get a sense that you're in a family, or at least a community. So, sometimes I wish the school had more people just for a few weeks, but since that can't happen, I'm satisfied with the size of the school.
I think Swarthmore's more well-known in the East Coast than in the West Coast, where I'm from. Many students and teachers in my high school in Seattle had never heard of Swarthmore. Some have, though. When I tell someone I go to Swarthmore, I usually get, "Oh, cool! Where is that?" from someone who's never heard of it.
I spend most of my time in my dorm, I think. It's probably close between my dorm, the library, and the science center. I usually go from place to place all the time, so often I go from my dorm (when I wake up) to class, then to breakfast, then back to my dorm to take a shower or brush my teeth, then back to class, then to lunch, then back to class for a lab if I have one, and then back to my dorm, where I do homework and check e-mail for an hour or so, and then head to dinner, and then from there I do homework wherever I feel like it.
Swarthmore is NOT A COLLEGE TOWN. It is not! There's very little in the borough of Swarthmore. I usually only go to the bank there. But there is everything you need--a Wal-Mart, a Target, a sort of quiet mall, a grocery store, a crappy Chinese restaurant, and a good pizza place. Actually, to get to Wal-Mart or Target you should take a van. So it really isn't a college town at all, which is rather unfortunate, because it would be great to have a cool town.
I don't have much of an opinion about Swarthmore's administration. I just have the pleasure of not having to deal with it.l
There haven't been any huge controversies on campus so far--I guess the most recent one was this: a few weeks ago, there were a lot of events on campus from various student groups about the economic state of the country, and Swarthmore's financial aid policy. In Parrish Hall, which is where the administrative offices are, students put pieces of paper all over the common area detailing students's experiences with the financial aid here, which is generally considered to be excellent. That, I think, captures much of my general impression of Swarthmore students, which I'll get to later.
There really isn't much school pride here--I've been to a few soccer games, and basically people watch if they don't have much else to do, but nobody really cares that much about the sports teams here, except the athletes. Lots of people probably aren't screaming out loud, "Yes! I go to Swarthmore!!!" but I think most of them like it here.
Swarthmore has some quirky (admissions office has really adopted this word and is trying to really associate that word with the school when they talk about Swarthmore to high school students and to parents) traditions, like the Pterodactyl Hunt, which is basically a sci-fi but reality game. It was actually pretty cool. There's also events like Dash for Cash and Sager, which I won't go into now. Swarthmore's a very liberal school--I don't think any review of Swat can be acceptable without mentioning this.
I haven't had too many memorable experiences yet, as it's just nearing the end of my first semester here, but one memorable experience would be the Pterodactyl hunt.
Most frequent student complaints: too much work to do, not getting enough sleep, Sharples food sucks, town of Swarthmore sucks. We have something called misery poker, which is when you start off by saying how much work you have to do and other people go around trying to beat you by trying to tell you that they have more work than you. We do it in math class every week.