Bryn Mawr College

Date: May 18 2002
Major: History/Histories (art history/etc.) (This Major's Salary over time)
Bryn Mawr was a wonderful eye-opening experience: I was not a misfit in high school, but until I came to Bryn Mawr, I had always had to hide my good grades and intellectual curiosity. I met lots of fun and brilliant people, and had conversations that shaped my life forever after. I almost always found that there were enough parties to go to, but that may have been because I searched out activities at affiliated colleges and in Philadelphia itself. I lived in co-ed dorms and apartments, and never had any difficulty meeting men from Haverford, Swarthmore, and U.Penn, as well as through friends. Philly is a wonderful resource for students, as is the beautiful campus. I get the impression that it is a more female-dominated campus now, but everyone I knew found the social life they were looking for, whether it was big parties and dances, smaller parties, pajama parties eating popcorn and reading romance novels (or cheesy erotica) outloud, etc. etc.

The benefit of a campus where the intellectual lives of women are the first priority, is that you will never be ignored as a student, even if you have a non-traditional major for a woman, such as physics, economics, engineering (can be done by majoring in physics at Bryn Mawr and taking engineering courses at U.Penn) or mathmatics.

There are some departments at Bryn Mawr that are famous within their fields: especially Greek, archaeology, art history, geology, physics, English. Every French major I know seemed to get a job using her major, too. Some of the classes or professors in these departments will change your life.

When I was at Bryn Mawr, the number of undergraduates was really tiny, which meant that you got to know the professors pretty well early on. By senior year, I was socializing with professors and staff regularly, as well as with the graduate students. Some students may find the place too much of a pressure cooker, you have to be grown up enough to cope with the self-imposed pressure to excel. The wonderful thing is that your professors, and your fellow students, will help you excel. That makes the classes really interesting: for me they were a quantum leap beyond the boredom that I had encountered all through high school.

I found that the Honor Code basis for student life worked very well, and it's a good basis for thinking through one's own ethical system. People can get rather pompous when working it through, but that's part of learning to lead, too.