Is Swarthmore really that intellectual?

Colleges and Universities A-Z Swarthmore College
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<p>dchow,</p>

<p>In answer to your question, YES, I do think that “there is a life of the mind” at Swat and I am basing this opinion on conversations that I have had with my D. </p>

<p>Many times my D has told me that she stayed up till 3 or 4 in the morning or simply did not go to bed at all because she was engrossed in conversations with friends or other students down the hall. Some of the time these conversations have been about politics, religion, philosophy, you name it. From what she has shared, many of these conversations would qualify as your idea of an “intellectual” exchange. Some have been rooted in class discussions, others in the special interests of those engaged in them, and for the sake of full disclosure, I should also add that some of these sleep deprived nights were nothing other than outright silliness and fun and a far cry from intellectualism. However, isn’t this what college dorm life is supposed to be?</p>

<p>If you long for “intellectual” conversations, do not hold back. Start one. Take the first step. If there is something in your mind, share it. Knowing my D, I would not be the least bit surprised to learn that she started many of the intellectual exchanges and silliness that kept her sleep deprived.</p>

<p>She is away at an internship for the summer where there are students from other colleges. Just the other day she commented that she missed the conversations and intellegence of the kids at Swat…</p>

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<p>This is a rather difficult query to answer. In my time at Swat I found it quite intellectual in a really delightful way. My favorite times were when those conversations put a more fun spin on learning - like talking about tv shows in relation to feminism or arguing about who would represent your seminar in a cage match against other seminars. After all, we get a lot of serious academic discussion in class. There were also times when I had perfectly serious academic discussions outside class, but those usually worked best with people from my departments who had enough shared knowledge to make discussions really productive. You might get more of such discussions as you spend more time with the other majors in your chosen department. Or you could make a big effort to find like-minded people who want intellectual discussion. </p>

<p>On the big picture question - are Swatties intellectual? They’re the most intellectual group of people I’ve ever met, but that doesn’t mean they’d surpass everyone’s intellectual threshold (apparently not yours). As to whether or not there’s a more intellectual college out there, I don’t really know, having little experience with other schools. Maybe you’d have better luck at a bigger school where there are enough people that there would be a large group interested in your types of conversation.</p>

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<p>OK, it looks like there plenty to talk about! Thanks for all your thoughtful comments. I’ll try to reply to them all thoughtfully too.</p>

<p>bubblysoprano: To me, pseudo-intellect is something that sounds like intellect but isn’t. Take quoting famous people as a scholarly mannerism, for example. Some people like to quote famous people in their conversation to sound learned and well-read. But it actually adds nothing to what that person is saying. It adds no thoughts. It adds no substance. It’s just used to make that person sound smart. Let me say that I never said that this whole campus is full of people like that. Just because I haven’t had many intellectual discussions doesn’t mean that everyone is like that. Rather, it was my friend who called Swarthmore “the land of pseudo-intellectuals.” I think what he meant was people who didn’t truly live for ideas, but instead use words like “heteronormative” just to show off.</p>

<p>HarrietMWelsch: About your first observation, I hope I did not suggest that I was looking for an intellectual conversation about the roommate thing. I wasn’t. About your second observation, I don’t know. I mean, I think I get along relatively well with people. Of course, there are some personalities that I just dislike and don’t go so well with, but I’ve met some very nice, warm, friendly, smart, good friends too. I hope that it really isn’t me. I think that changing the way you see people can help, but I don’t think that it will help increase the intellectual life of the campus. </p>

<p>davidwk: Good old-fashioned fun, as you say, is definitely a good stress-reliever. I also have heard that as people take more courses in their major, there’ll be more discussions of those ideas. When I was studying for final exams, there was a table in the library for honors exams people and they sat around discussing Shakespeare.</p>

<p>Tuppence: I certainly hope this doesn’t turn into a kind of psychological discussion. I think I was being analytical in that I analyzed my example in the original post. Why do you think that mixing criticism and analysis contributes to the way I see Swarthmore?</p>

<p>dramatica: Yes, I was thinking about your suggestion to start some kind of intellectual conversation too. It’s better to be proactive about this. Maybe if I started some kind of discussion, others will share what they have to say.</p>

<p>elenlin: I remember having fun conversations that had some sort of intellectual twist to them too. I can’t remember any right now but I do remember people making comments and me finding delight in them. It was very comforting to see that you’ve written that Swattties are the most intellectual group of people you’ve ever met. I don’t want to transfer, although I have to say that my parents now are supposed to pay $3,600 more this year. I’d rather make the most of my college years here.</p>

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<p>dchow,</p>

<p>Do not even for one minute entertain transferring over $3600. </p>

<p>I teach at a university and have familiarity with many schools and their student bodies. Peers are very important and Swarthmore manages to admit essentially some of the smartest and most caring human beings that you will ever find assembled in one place. </p>

<p>It is not a coincidence that many of your peers are the children not only of professors, but of university presidents from all over the world. </p>

<p>(And by the way, just so that you understand that I stand by what I am saying, we chose to pay full tuition at Swat for our D, although she could have attended for free our state schools and we would have paid very little tuition after merit awards at other fine schools. Having said that, although we are not wealthy, we do make a comfortable living and feel strongly about providing our kids with the best educational opportunities that we can give them, even if it means working a few extra years.)</p>

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<p>dchow,</p>

<pre><code> I don’t know nearly as much about Swarthmore as the other posters who actually attend the school but I was accepted there as well as Princeton, the University of Chicago and some other schools with a “rigorously intellectual reputation.” I enjoyed the campus preview weekend at Swarthmore and thought most of the students were friendly, very nice, down to earth, and generally had interesting things to say and were involved in ambitious undertakings. However, I also met a minority of students who seemed to border on the pretentious, “pseudo-intellectual” side. Often these were students who were affluent, may have had a prestigious private education (although not always) and displayed a very unattractive sense of entitlement/arrogance about their intellect or opportunities. To be fair, I also met students like this at Princeton and University of Chicago.

Unfortunately, your roommate seems to fall into this latter category. I come from a well to do family as well but my parents still require me to do chores, take care of waking myself up on time for school and keep track of my scheduled activities, belongings, keys, etc. I would be embarrassed to be a college freshman who treats my roommate like a parent and “expects” them to take that responsibility over for me. Quite honestly, I view your roommate’s inability to accept the responsibility of carrying a key with him and waking himself up in time for classes or a major exam as immaturity unrelated to his intellectual ability.
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<p>Ultimately, I chose MIT over Swarthmore because the bigger school made it feel as though people like these had less of an impact on the general campus culture, and I think MIT tends to “hose” the arrogance out of any freshmen who come with an arrogant attitude. </p>

<pre><code> Based on your comments, I suspect you still really enjoy your education at Swarthmore but would enjoy it even more if you were matched to a roomate with more emotional maturity who doesn’t treat you like a surrogate parent. Good luck with whatever you decide. I found reading your comments on CC very helpful as I was making my way through the college admission process. Thanks.
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<p>AE said: “the average intelligence of the student body at Swarthmore is undoubtedly lower than at some prestigious universities (and some private high schools, or even competitive public high schools, for that matter). The students are high-caliber, to be sure, but not the absolute best of the best across the boards.”</p>

<p>AE, one is Swarthmore; one is an Ivy; can you tel them apart?
SAT: Reading Middle 50%: 680 - 760
SAT: Reading Middle 50%: 650 - 760</p>

<p>I know SAT is not a measure of “average intelligence” but the “only the best of the best is the best” attitude on CC sometimes makes me laugh :-)</p>

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<p>I think astrophysicsdude did an admiral job of suggesting what may be bothering dchow08 and demonstrating the validity of some of his complaints. Bravo, well-done.</p>

<p>I am not speaking of the overall comments about Swat, just the understanding of the annoyance of a roommate with an immature sense of entitlement.</p>

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<p>I don’t think there is anything wrong with asking a roommate to give a kick in the butt if the alarm isn’t doing the job. It seems to me that’s what roommates do to help each other out. In fact, one of Swarthmore’s defining qualities is that it is very demanding, but the students (and faculty) tend to help each other. It’s kind of hard to imagine saying “no” to such a request. </p>

<p>This whole thread is poorly defined. Are we talking about intellectually curious young adults or pretentious students? Swarthmore seems to have a lot of of the former, but, obviously, they are not going to walk around 24/7 having deep academic conversations. If you want a heavy diet of that, my daughter recommends dining with Honors Philosophy majors. An example. My daugher participates in an informal alumni book club. Just a bunch of young recent grad Swatties who decide on a book to all read and every couple of weeks gather for cold beer and discussion of the book at somebody’s house. Just for fun.</p>

<p>Are there some pretentious students? There surely must be. There are at every school I’ve ever heard of. My former Swattie says that it’s pretty easy to quickly identify those and navigate around them if you so choose. My guess is that you would actually see more of that in a pre-frosh preview setting where high school kids are trying to impress each other with their brilliance than you would as an actual Swarthmore student when a) you’ve probably been humbled by a course and b) you’ve probably come to realize that everyone there is both smart and accomplished in some way.</p>

<p>As for students “raised to do chores” go – 1100 of the 1400 students on-campus at Swarthmore in a given year have a part time job through the student employment office. Only 10% of the students have cars on campus. So, within the context of ulta-elite private colleges and universities, it would be hard to characterize Swarthmore as being notably “snooty”.</p>

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<p>seems to me like ur were just being a dick</p>

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<p>the op is a lousy roomate and a worst friend. it just goes to show how difficult it is to discern a persons character just by using sat scores and gpa’s. all adcoms make mistakes and we need to chalk up the op as one that got by swats adcom. instead of indulging this clown’s whining, more of the posters should encourage him to get the hell off campus, pronto instead of staying. he’s polluting the air we breathe. if this cretin were my roommate, i would have bust a cap in his …</p>

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<p>one other thing. going around looking for “intellectualism” is the height of pretentiousness.</p>

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<p>Thanks, astrophysicsdude. I think that maybe my experience at Swarthmore so far has been influenced by what I take to be my old roommate’s sense of entitlement instead of just taking responsibility. After all, I saw him every day and we shared the same room. It just wasn’t meant to be. Oh well. I hope I’ll get along with my future roommates better. The sad thing is, my old roommate and I would probably have been better friends had we not roomed together.</p>

<p>interesteddad: The thing is, it was not that I was unwilling to wake him up if he didn’t wake up. It was the fact that he wanted me to promise to wake him up, which is different from actually waking him up. If I promised to wake him up, that means that I am assuming full responsibility for waking him up. That means he doesn’t even have to set the alarm, because he can sleep safe and sound knowing that I will wake him up and that if I don’t wake him up, he can blame it all on me. So promising to wake someone up has a risk. What if I forgot? I would not have heard the end of it.</p>

<p>Anyway, this whole thing about me and my roommate has gotten out of hand. I have thought about this so much that I don’t want to think about it anymore.</p>

<p>And we should not be talking about pretentious students here. Yes, I know that they exist at Swarthmore. What I wanted to focus on was not just intellectually curious kids, but people who were intellectual curious and who also wanted to share their ideas, to exchange them. That, to me, is the intellectual life. It does not mean going to lecture, taking notes, and going to your room and keeping all your ideas to yourself. </p>

<p>Rather, it means people saying, “Hey, what did you think about what Professor Mani said today, about cultural identity being not inherited but evolving over lifetime?” Professor Mani is an excellent teacher, full of interesting ideas that are discussed and shared. But if they were really interesting, what would stop students from saying, “Hey, what about this?” It is one thing to be curious about learning things. But living for ideas, and sharing them, would create a place where intellect truly reigns.</p>

<p>And the whole reason I started this thread in the first place was because I was rarely having intellectual discussions. It doesn’t mean that they need to be everywhere 24/7. I know that won’t happen. I don’t want that to happen. But they have got to go deeper than being really superficial. There is nothing intellectual about saying, “Did you know that Flaubert wrote Madame Bovary?” or “That joke reminds me of Freud.” It is only when you go into the significance of Madame Bovary, or why that joke reminds you of Freud that it involves a real exchange of ideas.</p>

<p>Anyway, I hope that next year things will turn out better. Maybe I’ll try to start some conversations myself.</p>

<p>I was not trying to prove anything in this thread. And really, I hope I’m wrong, and that people at Swarthmore do indeed like to have intellectual conversations as well as casual conversation. I was hoping someone would show me in what ways I was wrong. And I did get some helpful comments, and some that didn’t help at all.</p>

<p>Take Duhvinci.
To say that going around looking for intellectualism is the height of pretentiousness is complete crap.
First, the word intellectualism is incorrectly used. There is no “-ism” to what I am seeking. The correct word is not intellectualism but intellect.
Second, and more important: What you said is what I hoped no one at Swarthmore actually thought. Unfortunately, there is, and will be, a hatred of intellect. Intellect concerns academic excellence, which I hope everyone at Swarthmore values.</p>

<p>There will always be one person who stands up and praises academic excellence. There will always be another person who stands up and shouts, “ELITISM!”</p>

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<p>

</p>

<p>As grandma used to say, comes the dawn. Yes, maybe, just maybe, it might work better to start those conversations yourself rather than wondering why you’re not having them.</p>

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<p>Granted, I haven’t been a student at Swarthmore for a long time, but I have vivid memories of leaving an Honors seminar and continuing our discussions about Rawls’ “A Theory of Justice” all through dinner. I also remember drinking beer in the old Rathskellar in Tarble and talking about Hegel.</p>

<p>Also remember taking trips into Philly to the art museum and talking about the various paintings on which we were going to write papers.</p>

<p>And based on my time serving on Alumni Council, I don’t think this aspect of the College has changed in any way. One couldn’t ask for a more “intellectual” or stimulating academic environment.</p>

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<p>SwatGrad, in your experience at Swarthmore was this something that you had more when you were an upperclassmen, or did you have these wonderful talks throughout your time at Swarthmore?</p>

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<p>First you entered Swarthmore because is it is prestigious and that is important to you.</p>

<p>Second, you perceive yourself as intellectual, as others seem merely pseudo-intellectual.</p>

<p>Third, You demand intimacy where cultural differences digress from the importance you attach to interpersonal challenges.</p>

<p>Fourth, you dislike students who take things for granted and that of the privileges of elitist schools, and that they are the contempt of your person.</p>

<p>The roommate you refer to is in all probability used to inter-group dynamics that are supportive of competitive demands for group results. In other words, they work together for a common goal. The problem is that he has failed to realize that you are not a member of his in-group and thus behaviorally, you will not lend support for the perceived elitist tendencies on behalf of your roommate. That he is immature, does not lend to his personal development nor any positive relations to your relationship as a roommate.</p>

<p>Fifth, you would like to see him fail, as you do not like his elitist background, his arrogance, and so on.</p>

<p>That this gentleman is immature is taken for granted, but he comes from a cultural background which you do not understand and do not like. He should have been placed with those who would have been more instrumental in his success than one who has no concern for his predisposition.</p>

<p>Perhaps his quotations from Confucius was not so much pretense as contempt for the intellectual arrogance abrogated by your inability to retain relations with men typical of his attributes. Sometimes people quote those whom they perceive would be helpful in maintaining a sustainable working relationship.</p>

<p>His accusations of you being inhuman is based on his perceived valuation that you do not respect his person. I believe there is a communication problem based on cultural differences.</p>

<p>Now having answered your blog, let me say this:</p>

<p>I have had entry persons whom I like and then those whom I dislike. I keep a sense of decorum as to convenience, but not acquiescence. I do not engage my entry to intellectual discourse unless directly engaged. I have no expectations, thus no disappointments. I know how to create content and thus have not desire to beat my drum in order to have others hear my tune. Those that have ears will hear. Being different, and thus truly divergent, intellect resounds with many voices and hues and colors. I manage diverse groups well. However, the mark of leadership is to overcome differences and rise to the occasion of reaching out, despite the apparent transgressions.</p>

<p>I believe you are lonely and require much attention. I think you need a partner/roommate who understands or is WILLING TO UNDERSTAND who you are.</p>

<p>Why pick on WiLLY?</p>

<p>He is just another man looking for a brother for support and filial affection.</p>

<p>Why show contempt for those those who do not meet your expectations?</p>

<p>You need to grow up some too.</p>

<p>Man does not live by mere intellect, but by will, wisdom, and the power to change things.</p>

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<p>Wow dchow, </p>

<p>I just came back to see if you picked up my post and saw this rambling nonsense by HorseRadish. Unless English is the second language for this poster (or he is in the midst of a substance enhanced evening), I am truly frightened to think an actual Swarthmore student could write this incoherently. </p>

<p>Either way, he kind of lends more credence to your initial characterization of your previous roommate, which as you posted earlier is a pointless discussion at this time.</p>

<p>However, if there are many Swarthmore students like HorseRadish, I can definitely see why you might want to transfer elsewhere. This goes beyond seeking intellectual curiosity in the student body to seeking students with basic communicative competence.</p>

<p>Best of luck to you dchow-- and know there are others out there seeking the same things you are in their college experience.</p>

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<p>if I’m not mistaken, Horseradish is a Williams prefrosh. He has been amusing people up and down CC with his Borat-like homilies. :)</p>

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<p>OK. Sorry I fed the ■■■■■.</p>

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<p>dchow,
I don’t find your reasons for not waking up your roommate very persuasive. actually, i really curious about what your roommate quoted from Confucius. can you tell me?</p>