<p>Hi- I'd really appreciate an account of a typical day at Swarthmore based on personal experience. So, for example, a list of times and a sentence about what you do then. I can't visit so I'm having a hard time deciding whether to apply. Thanks tons in advance!</p>
<p>I don’t think there’s any “typical day”, since we all do so many different things…but I think roughly, a weekday would involve waking up, going to class, having lunch with friends at Sharples or grabbing a bag lunch, going to more class, maybe going to practice if you do a sport, going to dinner with friends at Sharples, and then going to your various club meetings, dance classes, maybe evening seminars, campus events, doing classwork, study groups, etc, and then sleep! This isn’t particularly specific because every Swattie has a different set of ECs which ends up taking up their time outside of class. :]</p>
<p>Lesse. I graduated in 09 (which feels like forever ago), but my Monday schedule might look something like:</p>
<p>9AM - wake
9:50 - first class
10:40 - second class
11:50 - lunch
1 - go to library for shift as ITS help desk worker
3 - finish shift, do some classwork or hunt down administrators for interviews for the Daily Gazette
5 - Meeting in Sharples for the Gazette
6:30 - Head to SCCS, do a bit more classwork
7 - SCCS (computing society) meeting or Peaslee debate meeting
8 - Head back to dorm, socialize
9 - Class work for a few hours
12 - Start working on stories for the Gazette, editing others, updating code, etc.
2 - Bed</p>
<p>Mondays probably had more meetings than other days of the week, and less socializing, since things were frequently due Tues-Thurs. A lot more people did fewer meeting/club things and more classwork. Or socializing. </p>
<p>But yea, there you have it.</p>
<p>you eat one meal a day?</p>
<p>The Gazette meetings were during dinner. So two meals.</p>
<p>I just finished my freshman year. My schedule was highly variable by day and by semester. Your schedule is also entirely what you make it. I’m a night person, so I stayed up late at night, and generally woke up late (at least 2nd semester, since I didn’t have any classes before 10, which is also true next semester, YAY!). I’m also involved in a lot of things. This is neither normal nor abnormal. Some people like to do a lot and be involved in everything, while others like to be really dedicated to a few things. I’ll give you a sampling that will hopefully be mildly representative:</p>
<p>Mondays, 1st semester:
8:30 - Wake up, get dressed
9:00 - Meet friends for breakfast at Sharples
9:30 - Calculus
10:30 - Biology
11:30 - Go to science center coffee bar and do homework, or go back to my room, or go to lunch. Lunch usually at around 12:30, when friends got out of class. Have leisurely lunch, then go do homework or run errands.
5:30ish - have dinner with roommate and friends. Could stay anywhere from half an hour to 2 and a half hours depending on workload and conversation
Do homework and hang out with roommate/other people on hall or who dropped by until 9:00
9:00 - Environmental conference call
9:30 - Green Advisors meeting
10:00 - Earthlust (environmental club) meeting
11:00 - Go to library and work if neccesary, otherwise socialize, wander back to dorm, go to bed eventually.</p>
<p>By contrast, Thursdays 1st semester:
9:50 - Wake up
9:55 - Tennis
11:00 - Go back to dorm and shower
12:00 - Go to lunch with bio lab group, discuss homework if neccesary
1:15 - Bio lab
4:00 - Go back to dorm and do homework/socialize
5:30 - Dinner
6:30 - Go to War News Radio until 2 in the morning or the show is finished.</p>
<p>Alternately:
Tuesdays, 2nd semester:
9:00 - Wake up, get dressed
9:25 - Meet people for breakfast in Sharples (hot breakfast stops being served at 9:30)
9:55 - Computer Science
11:10 - Go to coffee bar or computer science lab and do homework
12:30 - Go to Sharples for lunch (sometimes. Might also go earlier, depending on other people’s schedules)
1:15 - Religion and Ecology
Putter around, socialize, do homework, play Settlers of Catan, and so on for the rest of the day. Eventually have dinner. Maybe go to Quidditch practice. Later in the semester I went into Chester at 4:00 to tutor kids for my Religion and Ecology field placement and then had dinner when I got back at 6.</p>
<p>Or for another contrast:
Wednesdays, 2nd semester:
10:00 - Wake up, shower, finish education homework
11:30 - Chemistry
12: 30 - Lunch
1:15 - Intro to Education
4:30 - run back to my dorm and change
5:00 - Aerobics
6:30 - Dinner
After dinner, socialize, do homework, go to Chemistry help session, maybe other random things</p>
<p>Alternately, some wednesday morning I would get up at 7, have breakfast at Hobbs Coffee (next to campus - amazing!), and then go to my Into to Education placement at 8:30 at Chester high school.</p>
<p>My daughter will be a Junior at Swarthmore this fall. She is a biology major and also pre-med. Her schedule up to now has not left room for more than one co-curricular activity. She is very active in Global Health Forum, which has one official meeting each week and other meetings/projects every couple of weeks. Contrasts with schedules listed above are: 1) She is taking two or three courses with labs each semester. That means that she has courses virtually every morning of the week and 3-4 hour labs one afternoon a week for each science course. 2) Each math and science course has 1 or 2 study sessions in the early evening (including Sunday evenings) each week. So my daughter tends to have a study session for something about 3 times a week. Some of these are facilitated by advanced students and my daughter attends these only if she has had questions on her homework (she gets her homework done before the study session so that she knows the questions she needs to ask); however, the sessions at which the professor oversees the session are actually more like “class” sessions. My daughter attends all of these in order not to miss important information. The upside of this is that few colleges have professors willing to work with students in the evening. 3) Except for the first three weeks of the semester, my daughter typically spends several evenings a week in one of the science labs working on research projects associated with her science courses. The labs are filled with other students; often, professors are in the building working on their own research and are very willing to help students if they run into issues with their lab research. For example, my daughter’s professor this past semester helped her when she was taking photos of cellular structure in a plant using the $300,000 microscope in the lab. At first, my daughter thought that he didn’t trust her and was concerned that she might damage this piece of equipment; however, his interest really was in making sure that she was able to experience success and get the pictures she needed for her research report. He was as excited as she was when she got excellent photos. This intense engagement with learning in a laboratory setting of both professors and students is why Swarthmore students excel in graduate education. My daughter also has strong interests in literature and history. For each of these classes, students typically read a book a week and several articles. My daughter writes a lot for each of these classes. In sum, my daughter’s free time weekdays is limited to meals, an hour of working out, and an hour of socializing. On weekends, she typically does something for fun part of Friday and Saturday evening but Saturdays and Sundays are big study days. Swarthmore is an intense experience for my daughter; however, students are supportive of each other rather than competitive and the professors are simply amazing. For students who want to immerse themselves in an intense learning experience and have contact with professors that is reserved for Ph.D. students at most American universities, Swarthmore definitely offers that opportunity. As the other posts above suggest, for students who want to engage a wide range of co-curricular experience, Swarthmore offers a great community for that engagement too.</p>
<p>im gonna be a senior next year. ill give you my average day. it obviously varies a lot based on each day, especially if i have seminar or something. I’ll give you a Wednesday and a Thursday.</p>
<p>9 - Wake up, throw on clothes from last night, walk to the science center for class at 9:30
10:30 - After handing in problem set head over to Sharples for early lunch between classes, eat with friend or bring laptop and read news/etc
11:30 - Back to the Science center for second class
12:30 - Head to a lounge and relax, read over seminar papers
1:30 - Arrive at Trotter for seminar. Listen to discussions, participate a little, eat snacks at break, begin to fall asleep…etc.
5 - Get out of seminar. Very happy because work week is essentially over. Head back to dorm, maybe play basketball or tennis, play video games
7 - Go to Tarble for dinner, bringing work to do
7:30 - Head to science center lounge and casually begin next weeks seminar readings, problem sets. Take many long breaks. Just try to get ahead in general (I think getting ahead is a great idea. People think you never work because you’re always relaxing while theyre working last minute 
)
12:30 - Head back, chat online, sleep</p>
<p>11:10 - Roll out of bed, ****ed because i overslept. Walk to class without showering
12:35 - Class ends, walk over to tarble for lunch at 1 with friends
1:30 - Head to the science center with friends, try to work. Get a little work done, update my fantasy sports teams, read random things online, etc.
2:40 - Head to second class of the day.
4 - Out of class, go back to room and change, head down to the gym to work out and play basketball
6:30 - Head off to dinner at sharples, or wait around until tarble opens at 7
7:30 - Go back and play xbox with friends, intermittently working. Maybe work on my program or problem set.
10:30 - Head out to frats or maybe pub nite
2 am - Stumble back and go to bed</p>
<p>This is basically my schedule. Somehow I manage to fit enough working time in to get everything done haha. But I do spend a lot of time messing around, playing video games, and drinking. I think I get most my work done on Sunday and Monday afternoons (usually don’t have class Monday afternoons) and maybe Friday</p>
<p>edit: looks like everyone else is more active on the community than me. I used to do stuff. But now I’m content just sitting back and relaxing :)</p>