Swarthmore College Top Questions

Classes are small, personal, professors know you on a first name basis and you know many of them on a first name basis as well. I've heard of an Arabic professor inviting students over to his house for wine and hookah. It can get pretty personal which is cool because you get a lot of attention. My favorite and most unique class was French Cultural and Critical Theory which was listed under French and an interdisciplinary area of study known as Interpretation Theory. Basically, it was a French continental professor giving you a survey on a bunch of prominent continental philosophers (French or otherwise). The continental 'canon' was huge: Foucault, Derrida, Butler, Zizek, Lacan, Freud, Benjamin, Agamben, Baudrillard, Mouffe to list a few. It was an amazing eye-opener and mind-blower into an entirely new area of thought which I hadn't explored before. There seems to be lots of classes that reveal entire fields of knowledge which you had never discovered before. It was great. My least favorite class was some Intro to Phil class. Intro classes are usually more uninteresting because they are more basic and mundane. Class participation is very common which is great because so many ideas are discussed in every class. Swatties have lots of intellectual conversations outside of class which is awesome because you can talk about classes and subjects you've never heard of before. Talking to people outside your major outside of class is one of the most enlightening things you can do. Students aren't competitive. Even though Swat can be intense, people aren't overly concerned about grades and there's no cutthroat competition amongst people. Swat's academic requirements are very minimal and you can get out of em with AP's as well. There is a P.E. requirement which can be silly but there are some interesting P.E. classes like Aikido that you can take. Swarthmore is geared more toward learning for its own sake but it also prepares you for the job market very well and the Career Center can help you out a lot in that regards. But if you want to go on to further study after college, Swarthmore is definitely the place to be. Small classes and personal relations with good professors translates into amazing preparation for grad school and connections to good letters of recommendations.

I expected the transition from high school to college to be far more intense than I experienced during my first two years here. Yes, the school work is much harder and I barely sleep several days of the week. Arabic, in particular, is a constant struggle. But studying the humanities, the field in which I've chosen to concentrate, doesn't seem to have changed since high school. I can still bullshit my way through literary analyses, hold empty discussions on nebulous topics, and get away without reading. I'm fine with it. My point is that for the most part, I stimulate my intellect, the classes don't. My own research and reading almost invariably yields the greatest rewards--at least in the humanities. And God knows I'm terrible at the natural sciences, so I won't even bother describing my experience with them. In general, however, the professors are always ready to elucidate any confusing shit, the academic requirements are reasonable, and the class selection never fails to fascinate.

Students study a lot, sometimes on Saturday nights if need be. Class participation is common; classes are highly interactive with a small number of students. Students are other Engineering programs tend to be overstressed and suicidal; however, the Engineering students at Swarthmore are encouraged to work as a team in all our assignments, which inherently removes competitive urges. The professors are very accessible and spend a lot of time with us. Sometimes, they'll even be around just to help you at 10PM on a Sunday night. The amount of personal research they do is minimal because they are mainly here to help us learn. Sometimes, I'll just be sitting in the Hicks lounge, and a professor will come by and share an article with me. 20 out of my 32 minimum credits are devoted to fulfilling my Engineering credits, which spans across Math, Physics, Computer Science, Chemistry & Engineering. But I still feel there is a lot of room to take electives that aren't directly satisfying a requirement. The education at Swarthmore is definitely geared towards learning for its own sake. However, there is Career Services to guide students to getting a job.

Tough. Professors expect alot out of their students. Students work a lot and yes, intellectual discussion does sometimes occur outside of class. Personal attention is a big thing at Swarthmore (student-faculty ratio 8:1) as professors know you and your abilities. My classics professor once wrote an entire page (single-spaced) of comments on a paper I had written. Swarthmore definitely is a place to learn how to think, and I have certainly been challenged in ways that I couldn't have imagined.

I love my professors. Yes they all know who I am and I feel totally comfortable talking with them. My classes are difficult but I feel like I am pushed in a good way, and I feel like I am growing as a person through all the stuff that I do both in the classroom and as work on my own. Yes, I admit it is hard work but I am prouder of myself because of it, and truly believe that i will succeed after college because of the work I am putting in here and now.

Aside from intro classes, classes are so small that professors usually do know everyone's names and class participation is (unfortunately) highly necessary. Students have the sometimes annoying habit of engaging in class conversations even outside of class, on weekends, and when drunk. THAT is how passionate they are. Education at Swarthmore is definitely geared toward learning for its own sake rather than getting a job. Thus, I fear many of us will be jobless after graduation.

My professors tend to know my name, and recognize me after classes are over. Students also tend to hold intellectual discussions long after class has finished.

I enjoy the relationships that you are able to build with your professors because they do end up being a lot more personal, that they would be at larger institutions. I have to say that in general I am pleased with the structure of the academics here at Swarthmore, just not the diversity of the teachers, and the size of the English department in particular because we have a very limited course selection that usually gravitates towards the same material. I wouldn't mind if the limited material was more varied and interesting, but on the whole it just isn't.

Although academics at Swarthmore are much more demanding than at any other institution I have been to, I really enjoy studying here. In High school I had some classes that I was required to take and I would never ever look forward to those classes. However, I have yet to have a class here at Swarthmore that I have not yet not wanted to attend. In engineering, I find myself frequently staying up all night in the engineering building, because I become so immersed in the material, that I want to understand it as well as I can. I do believe that the academics challenge you more than most colleges will, but I do believe that it is for our benefit and I can truly see some of the benefits that will soon come from our efforts.

yes they know my name, favorite class ever was foundations drawing and michelangelo, least favorite are the ones im taking right now, students study all the time, participation is common, sure they have intellectual converstations, not competitive, SWARTHMORE EDUCATION WILL NOT PREPARE ANYBODY FOR A JOB, its for the sake of higher learning, to learn and study things that are completely useless in the professional world and to get into grad school to learn more useless things, you learn things in the professional world through experience but basic skills are still needed for that job which is absent at swarthmore. they dont even have a design or communications class for pete sake

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.

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).

In small classes professors will know your name, and class participation is a large part of grades in most classes.

yeah, most of my professors knew my name, i wasn't close with all of them. my favorite class ever was probably evolution or my food class. my least favorite might have been statistics or developmental psychology. i studied constantly but it seemed like people had varying work patterns. some people procrastinated constantly, some worked all the time, some just blew everything off. class participation was definitely very involved, i can remember only one class where everyone was apathetic, and that was the professor's fault. oh, you can't shut a student up about intellectual crap, so the answer to that is yes. hmm, i'd say individual students were competitive but it was generally acknowledged that you were competing against yourself and your own expectations. i took one class that had only TWO PEOPLE in it - literature of dissent. that was pretty awesome and unique. i was a special double major in psychology and biology, i now wish i had just majored in bio and done a lot more neuro. the psychology dept. isn't very good. a lot of our professors had optional study sessions or such and i went to those a lot. i think swat's academic requirements are fine. i'd say the education is more for education's sake than about providing practical background, but a lot of employers want an employee with the varied background and writing skill that comes from a liberal arts education.

My professors all know my name, which is great! They really care about the success of each of their students in the classroom. Students study A LOT (you have to if you want to do well in your classes). Depending on the class, participation varies, but overall, there is a good amount of participation. Yes, people have intellectual conversations outside of class (often they carry over from class). Students are not really that competitive, which is a nice change from high school. The most unique class I have taken was a first year seminar entitled "Battling Against Voldemort."

I have actively known a number of my professors, some I would even call my friends. There is so much respect for students here, it's hard not to feel the same for the professors who pick this environment. We study a lot, and it can be your life if you want it to be, but it hasn't been mine and I've done well here. Grades are not something I discuss with anyone in specifics because that's not what my classes are about and comparing myself to anyone else is completely useless. Swarthmore fosters a sense of academia that I don't feel like I want to continue in after graduation, but it has been a great learning experience.

All of my professors know my name. My class size has ranged from 6 to about 100, which is as big as classes get. My least favorite class was Into to Peace Studies - I just didn't feel that it was taught well, and the material was too abstract. Theories about peace.. come on! My favorite classes are all tied: World Texts and the Critic, an English class about globalization; Reason, Power and Happiness, an intro polisci/philosophy seminar; and Intro to Education. Students are generally not competitive. Swat doesn't calculate GPAs or have class rank, so it's pretty hard to compare yourself to other people anyway. Students study a lot - maybe 2 to 3 hours a day for me usually, more if I have a paper or a test. However, it's the extracurriculars that eat up most of my time. Students have tons of intellectual conversations outside of the classroom. I would say that one of the defining characteristics of Swat is how much students want to take academics into the real world. I'm a double major: Honors English Literature and Women's Studies. The English department is kind of stinky because it doesn't really offer enough classes for the size of the department. They offer tons of First Year Seminars, which are only for freshman and thus not very helpful for me right now. Women's Studies is interdisciplinary and in the process of switching to being called Gender and Sexuality Studies, so it's kind of in a disorganized inbetween place, but I don't mind. The Swarthmore education is not geared toward getting a job or learning for its won sake. I would say the education is mostly about making change in the world, whether thats through doing Physics research, going into politic or being a teacher, or whatever. People don't come here to get the credentials to go right into a professional job - almost all students go to grad school. However, the learning isn't just for fun. Swatties are very dedicated to doing something with what they know. Swarthmore's academic requirements can be a little annoying if you already have a very specific focus. I hate science and math, so I wasn't thrilled that I had to take three credits in one of those departments. I took Genetics, Statistics, and Physics, which weren't too hard, but I still would rather have devoted those credits to something else. Still, there's no core curriculum, which is nice, and Swat basically just tries to get you to take a variety of things and explore your interests.

The rumors are true: Academics are strong and difficult at Swarthmore. Students spend a lot of time working for classes, but I think most people enjoy it. Even though people always complain about how much work there is, I think most students are interested in what they're working on, especially once they get into their majors. I know that all of my classes this semester are incredibly interesting to me. So, even though I bitch about the amount of reading and the papers piling up, I am honestly interested in what I'm learning about. I'm taking 3 classes for my Sociology/Anthropology-Education major right now, and I really enjoy each of them. Two of the courses are on the larger side, with about 30 students, while the other has 12 students for a seminar. My fourth class, Social Psychology, is a lecture with about 80 students, so I have a wide range of class dynamics this semester. They're all good in their own way. The lectures in social psych are interesting and entertaining, and the large class size means that there are tons of people to study with. The 30-ish classes give small groups opportunities for discussion and presentations, which allow you to get to know people in this larger class. They provide a good combination of lecture and group discussion. Finally, the seminar gives me an opportunity to really think critically on my feet. It's a challenge, but it's also an awesome chance to get to know the students and the professor. Professors at Swat work really hard to get to know each of their students. Even in the 80+ person lecture, my social psych professor tries to remember students' names, and he's getting pretty good. Plus, at such a small school, you see your professors outside of the classroom. Although it can be startling to see your professor at the gym, it does give you a unique opportunity to interact in a non-academic setting, which is really cool. Swarthmore boasts having an "ethical education" meaning that you learn about life and how to address issues of social change in addition to learning about academia. I think they can do a better job of this, but there are definitely aspects of this in a lot of courses. For me, it was most clear in one of my first year seminars called Social Change and Social Responsibility. It was an awesome class that really made me think about the different avenues of creating social changes in different communities. On a different note, Swat's requirements are pretty reasonable. They aren't too much, and they give you a good opportunity to learn about different subjects.

Swarthmore has all the benefits of a small liberal arts college: super-small classes, professors that are invested in teaching (as opposed to solely their own work), and lots of individual attention. Professors are super-available at office hours and really do develop personal relationships with their students. I think that something unique to Swarthmore (as opposed to other LACs) is that professors are super-appreciative of the fact that their students are invariably really smart and really nerdy, and therefore are particularly fond of their students. There are people who study A LOT at Swarthmore. My friends in the natural sciences, in particular, seemed to spend most of their waking hours working on problem sets or in the labs. As a humanities major with the ability to read fast, I didn't spend the majority of my time studying, but definitely a couple hours every day, and a couple of all-weekend sessions when a big paper was due (this happened maybe twice a semester). Do Swarthmore students have intellectual conversations outside of class? Oh, and do they. This is one of the big reasons why I ended up at Swat, and was not disappointed - though I was sometimes sort of overwhelmed by it. Ultimately it's a good thing, but there's definitely no escaping it. One of the secret things about Swarthmore is that students are - at least in my experience and that of my friends - emphatically NOT competitive, at least not with each other. People work very hard and often have ridiculously high expectations for themselves, but there's not a sense of having to be best in the class or compete for the best GPA. The learning environment is very collaborative, students study together and want to help each other. The one exception to this is the Honors Program: this optional cumulative experience gives each student a final, and very public, grade (Honors, High Honors, Highest Honors). This was my one taste of competitiveness among friends and colleagues, and while the Honors experience was worth it in certain other ways, it left a bad taste in my mouth.

Academics at Swarthmore are incredible---for the person who wants to be an academic. My main interest is social theory, so I am all set, but I know people who want to know how to make films, or how to organize laborers, or how to run a business and they do not get these skills from Swarthmore. Is the education at Swarthmore geared toward getting a job? Nothing could be less true. You learn the most useless things possible at this school. Of course you can major in Computer Science, Engineering, or Education, or you can attend grant-writing workshops, or you can learn a language, or complete the pre-med or pre-vet requirements, but otherwise you will have to rely on your privilege, connections, and wits to get a non-menial job after graduation. Swarthmore students do have intellectual conversations outside of class, but like most of the "intellectual" conversations held between educated people, they are pretty paltry and basically amount to a lot of grandstanding and pretension. Don't come here thinking you'll have a bunch of really enlightening conversations. You will read a bunch of really enlightening books and meet a bunch of really incredible people, but those two worlds don't really intersect.

Most of the professors I've taken classes with so far are extremely approachable. They make themselves very available to their students. For larger classes, students just have to take the extra effort to go during the professor's office hours to form a more personal connection with the professor. I'm on a first-name basis with most of my professors, which was weird for me at first, but I've gotten used to it. Students study whenever they can make time. When students aren't busy committing to some extracurricular activity, they're probably studying. Even if there's nothing immediate to get done, I think most students feel guilty and find some form of work to do. Although the atmosphere feels far from competitive, the fact that everyone is always working makes one think he/she is doing something wrong when he/she is not. I usually feel like I'm falling behind or something. Swarthmore's academic atmosphere is far more intense than it is at most schools. I've spent time with a few professors outside of class. I had a professor during my freshman year that has been playing Ultimate since graduate school. After speaking with her about it, we decided to play on the same summer league while I was doing research on campus. When I took Japanese, the professors always had fun things for us to attend and practice our Japanese. For example, every Thursday, there was a "language table" set up in the dining hall for students who wanted to practice Japanese. There were also frequent Japanese film viewings and a skit performance at the end of every semester. At the end of the year, the class gathered together and followed directions in Japanese to cook a meal of curry rice, and then ate together. I occasionally run into my drill professor in the dining hall. Running into her feels like running into an old friend.

Academics are the strength of Swat. Professors are consistently good and even when they're not "good" they're probably a lot better than professors elsewhere. Students are not overly competitive and it's very much an individual challenge to do well in class. Swarthmore classes are intense but not cutthroat. Some intro classes are not too bad but there are a large group of classes offered that require you to study more than you ever thought you would've had to. And if you're an honors major, then you can expect even more. A word should be put in about Swarthmore's small size and it's openness to student-professor contact. There are a few professors here that I see at work until midnight every day and who come in regularly on the weekends. They are literally always around. Every professor has office hours for students to come see them, and even outside of those hours students can usually drop in whenever they want and talk about class. This is, after all, what distinguishes a small liberal arts college from a huge state school.

Professors not only know your name, but often who you're dating. They are often wonderful, warm, funny, nerdy people who are excited to teach small classes full of students who love to learn and make interdisciplinary connections. I had a phenomenal experience in my Avant-Gardes in 20th century art seminar because it was comprised of all the senior art history majors, who, at that point I knew somewhat well. Two years out of college, they're still my seminarmates and we still laugh at Duchamp references. Swarthmore is the quintessential small, liberal-arts college: we live and breathe our subject matter and love it. We also have great discussions with our friends in other disciplines and take on way too many activities, but it's because Swarthmore students really want to feel vibrant and useful and like they are participating fully in their community. Yes, we care about community and Swarthmore certainly feels like one academically and socially.

I knew before I came to Swat that I would have an invigorating academic experience . But that's not to say that there's competition, or at least in the competition with your peers type of way. Everyone wants to do good, but it's for our own sake. Grades are hardly ever mentioned and Swat doesn't even calculate GPA! That being said, I study a lot and spend most of my afternoons in the library preparing and doing homework for my classes. Class participation is also key to success at Swat, but also getting to know the professors is a must. All of my professors know my name and I always make it a point to visit them during their office hours. It's actually a lot of fun because they're all incredible people with so much knowledge and wisdom. I plan on majoring in studio arts. Perhaps a double major with sociology, but art is my forte. The department somehow succeeds in making us work are butts off while spoiling us at the same time. I love it!

of course professors know my name! even in my lectures. my favorite classes are those in which a (generally male) teacher postulates knowledgeably on his subject. students study all the time. students have intellectual conversations all the time and are uncompetitive. most unique class: acting 1.

All my professors know my name. Most classes have 12 or fewer students other than lower level Chemistry courses and Bio courses. Since Swarthmore doesn't not rank its students, there is a friendly non-competitive environment for students to enjoy. Swarthmore students almost always have intellectual conversations outside of class.

if you try to get to know the professors, most will remember you ad help you out on a more intimate level. my fav class right now is clinical psychology. it's not that easy, but th professor really loves what she does and is totally approachable. sometimes i think she assigns more than she knows one can do, but the class interest is so profound that mostly everyone grits their teeth and bears it, including myself. i don't like math as much as i thought i did.

Professors def know all their students by name. My favorite class was a first year seminar (limited to 12 students) called "Reason, Power, and Happiness." It was scheduled from 7-11 pm Wed nights but we would often be there past 12 continuing our discussions. Readings included everything from Aristotle to Harry Potter. The Prof really got us to think about every topic we covered and questions or assumptions and rethink our initial reactions. When you said something in class he really listened to what you said and treated more like a peer than a student. Often times the feedback on our papers would be almost as long as the paper because he was just so eager to discuss your ideas with you. It was an amazing experience. My least favorite class was Bio II, it's one of the few big classes and I went to Swat because I didn't want to have to deal with large lectures. While the amount of time students spend studying varies person to person, most people do study a lot. Similarly, not everyone participates in class but it is not unusual to do so and many professors are good at getting responses from everyone. Students def have intellectual conversations out of class but they can also deteriorate into beautifully immature and amusing topics as well. Students do not tend to be competitive. People are great about sharing notes, and studying in groups. I don't even know what kind of grades most of my friends get because its just not a usual topic of conversation. Education is eared toward learning for its own sake. But people still end up getting the kind of job (or into grad school) they want after Swat.

All the professors know me by name. I have yet to come across one who didn't remember me. Class discussion and participation is a huge part of Swarthmore and one of the benefits of small class sizes. I love how I can strike up an intellectual discussion randomly in the middle of lunch. I'll off-handedly will mention something about classes in america and three people around me will join in. Students, with an exception for the pre-meds, are not competitive at all. I've spent time with a few professors outside of class and each time has been rewarding. I've heard a few friends who smoke with their professors and go visit their homes for class. Swarthmore does not prepare you to get a job. It prepares you to get into grad school.

Professors certainly know the names of their students. Students study very frequently for classes. Class participation is the norm. Intellectual conversations outside of class is as common as class itself. My major is biology and it is the best department on campus! We definitely see professors outside of class, as many live near the college. The academic requirements are amazing and leaves a well-round student at the end of their Swarthmore career. The education is more for learning but certainly helps in getting a job later in life.

Professors make an effort to know my name. My favorite class is engaging, has a lot of reading of which I enjoy all of. My least favorite class is in the Engineering department, and I do not enjoy it because it is extremely difficult for me personally. The motivated students study from upwards of 8 hours a day (including readings) outside of classes, while many study for perhaps 3-4, and a small number do not study at all or study for 1 hour or less. Class participation is common and encouraged. My major is English and it is a great department, very strong. I rarely spend time with professors outside of class. I feel that Swarthmore academic requirements are challenging but not at all outside of anyone's limits. The education is geared toward learning for its own sake.

Professors know my name, but perhaps not after I'm out of their classes for a while. Favorite class- so far, adolescence and FYS ways of seeing and telling. Least favorite- almost everything I took first semester of Freshman year, stat, french 12, intro philosophy (lies, bullshit and bias)...but it's all good now. Participation- common. Intellectual conversations- yes. Competitive- just some. but most are very over-achieving. Unique class- I love adolescence, but don't know if it's unique or not. Major- undecided, but definitely will incorporate education. Prof outside of class- no. Academic requirements- don't like the departmental distribution of credits... Education at Swat- learning for its own sake.