Swarthmore College

Date: Nov 05 2007
Major: Undecided (This Major's Salary over time)
Where to begin? Well, first of all, Swarthmore is a school that caters to a very specific kind of person..in general, the student body is composed of kids who come from rather privileged backgrounds but are, oddly enough, not necessarily attractive, sexy, charming or clean. Many here enjoy spending their time ruminating on issues of "social justice" from their little ivory tower…when most graduate, they will head to NYC, Philly, DC, Boston or San Francisco and, perhaps, for a year or two, delude themselves into thinking they're more virtuous than the typical state school student by engaging in some sort of volunteer work. After they've put in their dues, they will most likely go to graduate school in field of study which will put them on track to live a typical upper-middle (to wealthy) comfortable, suburban existence. To this end, most Swatties are just like everyone else…they just harbor notions that they are somehow superior morally and intellectually to the rest of the world. Anyway, aside from the vomit-inducing, not-so-subtle self-righteousness that many here exude (it's always fun seeing a white guy who has two really white-washed black friends at Swat think he's down with the black community), there are other really irritating things about this school. The miniscule size of the school is often touted as one of its major selling points, but it's really far more of a curse than a blessing. Some people will feign excitement over seeing the same people day in and day out for four years straight, but for most normal people, it gets incredibly wearing having to run into the desperate wannabe hot crowd (read all of the lamo sports teams) or the smelly, granola weirdo folks (read almost everyone else). The whole experience at Swat just reeks of same ole same ole after a year…by your Sophomore year, you've probably experienced as much as you want to of the campus, the people, the pathetic parties and the annoying professors. It just gets old, real fast. There are those who make the best friends of their lives and, after graduating, move with them to one of the cities mentioned above and live the rest of their lives in the glow of their bestest Swarthmore friends in weirdy, granola heaven. For others, you never want to see a Swattie ever again after realizing just how fake and pretentious most of your classmates actually were. Oh, and you must be ready to deal with a jock population that is so overtly boring and slimeball proud of their "party" reputation, they tend to overlook just how much of a sad caricature of attractive party people they are…they're more like the inftinitely ugly step-brother (or step-sister) of the hot guy or gal at a state school who truly knows how to work his or her bombshell status (knowing full well that this is as good as it gets). The "jocks" at Swarthmore try desperately to latch on to this stereotype but generally end up looking like silly dingbats (just look at our two ghetto-ass "frats). Be prepared.