Swarthmore, home of poets with the souls of engineers, physicists with the souls of poets, engineers with the souls of physicists, and soulless econ majors. Swarthmore, home of the Swarthmore Spheromac Experiment. Swarthmore, that cut its football team and completes a major phase of its new science building this year. This is a place of love, of passion for learning, of friendship and fellowship.
Housing
Critical to a college is its housing. Swarthmore has several dorms, each with unique character.
Academics
Meh. The academics are good. People work hard, although not as hard as they claim. The professors will love and cherish you. They will lavish time and reading material on you. Students feel an obligation to be good to the professors; they don't want to let them down.
Libraries
- McCabe Library -- The largest of the three, and most general. Humanities, video rentals, massive 9' diameter globes.
- Cornell Science Library -- Medium-size. Home of natural science majors who either want quiet or shun the squalor of DuPont. Never talk above a whisper on the 2nd floor. You have been warned.
- Underhill Music Library -- Small. Sheet music, recorded music, books about music.
Food
There are five major sources of food: dining services, local pizzerias, Cheng Hing, the Co-op, and Genuardi's. I won't spoil the joy of investigating the latter four food options for oneself. Dining services offers a mediocre coffee bar with decent espresso and powdered chai, a rather good snackbar, and the edible but monotonous food at Sharples, the dining hall. When I eat at the snackbar, I have a chicken finger sandwich on a kaiser roll with lettuce, tomato, and honey mustard sauce. Try one. It's good. The dining hall serves good cheesesteaks almost every night.
There is only one place to go for a good breakfast, and surprisingly few people ever go there: the Mary Lyons Breakfast Room. Open to the entire student body, but located far from main campus, in the Mary Lyons dorm, it is open from 7:30ish - 9:00ish every morning, serving fresh eggs, pancakes, or something else. Perhaps the best food that can be gotten with a meal credit; students cook it for meagre pay.
Transit
Part of every college experience are the trips home. Swarthmore has excellent transit if you like trains. Only $17 and 3.5 hours to NYC, only $7 to the airport, only $3.50 and 25 minutes to downtown, all on the SEPTA regional rail system. Swarthmore's on the R3 line. It's also right off Baltimore National Pike, and near I-95.
People
Tell me who you are, and I'll add you. I have yet to proselytize much to my friends.
gr, I never knew ya.
Polygeomroph began his studies at Swarthmore in 2002, and hopes to graduate with the class of 2006. His cousin will begin her studies there in 2003, and hopes to graduate in 2007. Their cousin graduated in 1996.