<p>One of the things I love about Swarthmore is its reputation for recruiting 'nerdy' people ^ ^ In almost every aspects it seems to be a perfect school for me, but now for ED1 I'm kind of torn between Swarthmore and Williams. The primary concern is this: I know Swarthmore is known for its excellent bio major and engineering, and in both forums and college tour the majority of Swatties I met majors in bio or engineering. Though I love quirky people a lot, I have my academic interests almost solely in arts and sociology, and don't think I might pursue science majors in 100 years =w=. Since this is the case, should I turn to colleges with best known majors in arts and sociology(Williams, for example)?</p>
<p>Swarthmore is actually one of the top producers of social science PhDs, when ranked on a per capita basis. Williams does have a renowned Art History program, but other than that I wouldn’t say that Williams’ arts and sociology are so much better than Swarthmore as to influence your choice. You certainly don’t have to major in engin or the sciences to fit in, have fun and do well at Swarthmore. (n.b. in my close family I have 2 math Swat grads, 1 engin Swat grad, 1 econ Swat grad a sociology Swat grad and and a Religion Swat grad)</p>
<p>Plus the benefit in being in a ‘smaller’ major you will have even more opportunities to work closely with the professors. But most importantly, you need to look at what opportunities the consortium offers, because I believe those are strong majors at Bryn Mawr and Maybe Haverford…then of course there are the classes offered at Penn. i don’t think you really need to be concerned because from what I have seen, Swat is not a school for only Engineering and Science majors by far, it is a school for people who are passionate about their subject, whatever it is. The school is there to foster your passion. One of the students that spoke to parents at orientation, told how Swat actually hired professors to ensure that she could study her specific area of music and the arts.</p>
<p>Agree with previous posts, sometimes a small dep’t means: extra advising attention, smaller classes, more resources for fewer students, more comraderie and more intimate events with faculty.</p>
<p>Also my impression of Swat (having visited recently) was the opposite: Swatties don’t go there to be the same, they go there to be different, together.</p>
<p>@dadx3 Wow you have a big family of Swatties! Thanks, that has been really helpful</p>
<p>@GvaMom They did that? That’s cool. Yeah I just checked out the consortium, and I think I’ll be fore than fine there.</p>
<p>@momcinco O that sheds a different light. cause I used to think small departments generally get less resources… and I guess I often benefit from the inspiration from my classmates, that’s why I’m a little worried if there’s too few studying socio and arts there.</p>
<p>To put things in perspective, in last year’s graduating class there were 18 sociology/anthropology majors, 8 art and 12 art history majors. The most popular majors were political science (49), economics (46), biology (44) and psychology (31). Among engineering and the other sciences, some had higher numbers than sociology/anthropolgy (engineering at 21 and math at 25), while others had lower numbers (chemistry at 11 and physics at 8).</p>
<p>Yeah, apparently I should be more than fine ^ ^
Well there’s another issue that somehow troubles me… I know Swarthmore has a pretty strong culture of politics, but as I am an international, although I take some interest in politics I don’t think I really know much, especially about American politics, so… will that hurt me？And if I’d like to join such conversations, will it seem weird if I just observe and learn for the first couple of times?</p>