Swarthmore College

Date: Jan 11 2006
Major: Language - French/Spanish/etc. (This Major's Salary over time)
There's a bunch of kids who are jaded about their experience at Swat, and for a little while (sophomore year), I was too. But I'm wrapping up my senior year now, and I've come to appreciate Swarthmore much more now that I'm starting to see a little bit of what the "real world" looks like. The biggest problem is probably that students here have no basis for comparison. In terms of academics, it is very difficult to mount a successful criticism. Some folks might complain here and there about an arrogant professor or a tough grader, but consider this: when my friends and I have looked back on our years here, we realized that we never took a bad class that wasn't our own fault for taking. For instance, Honors Linear Algebra kicked my ass freshman year, but only because I wasn't able to handle it, not because there was any problem with the professor. In fact, she did quite a bit to make sure I was able to stay with the class enough to grab a passing grade (thank goodness for pass-fail). The professor are probably 95% excellent and generally important in their fields, even if they don't have the same big-name recognition as some Ivies and whatnot. And furthermore, the classes are wonderfully small and there are no teaching assistants. I took Intro to Economics in a class of 25 with a superb professor who works for the World Bank. I just don't think you can get that kind of education elsewhere.

Another complaint is that Swarthmore fails to prepare you for a career. Well, so do most elite colleges and universities. That's why there are trade schools for people who just want to get a job, and grad schools for graduates. The fact of the matter is that telling your school's name to an employer is a much smaller factor than finding a networking contact with an employer. If anything, the situation at Swat is that it can be very difficult to land an awesome first job right out of college not necessarily because of the lack of skills training, but because Swat doesn't have a very good alumni network. But what does that mean? Well, it turns out that when you go searching for alumni contacts, they're usually working in bizarre fields that don't directly pertain to you, rather than corporate jobs with big businesses. This is because most Swatties have big ideas about what they want to do in the world, be it start an NGO in Africa or create a website to help innercity students get an edge up, and after a few years of getting themselves some money and some contacts, they actually end up doing exactly what they wanted to do. Now, as a senior looking for a contact for a first job, that kinda sucks unless you're already really passionate about women's rights in Ghana, but it also offers that hope that you might one day realize your own dream too. And from what I've heard from recent graduates, once Swatties get their foot in the door of whatever career they're interested in, they rise very quickly through the ranks because Swat has taught them to do superb work that easily overshadows the stuff coming out of other recent grads.

My final advice: Swarthmore is a pretty unique place. When I was looking for schools, it just so happened that it met all of my criteria, whereas every other school lacked something. But the best way to get a vibe of what makes Swat unique is to visit the campus, and if possible, stay with a student. Your experience might be kind of random depending on whom you stay with, but if you also pay attention to things like how students interact with each other, etc., you'll get a real good sense of the school. And then you either like it or you don't.