<p>Hey I am from Southern California, I want to major in English. I want to be a literary critic and eventually work in publishing. </p>
<p>Which would you go to between these two great schools? I am completely torn.</p>
<p>Swarthmore is a great choice for an English major.</p>
<p>If you’re looking to major in English I’d say Swarthmore by far. Georgetown is well known for their international relations/business and politics departments, but I haven’t heard much raving about their English department.
I have a feeling Swat would also give you a more well-rounded education that would allow you to become an even better literary critic. </p>
<p>Is there anything else you might be interested in studying? Because if you were thinking about dabbling in politics, Swarthmore has a great polisci department as well :D</p>
<p>I don’t know much about Swarthmore’s English department. I am taking an English class right now that is excellent. On the other hand, Swarthmore doesn’t offer many English courses each semester, so you’re somewhat restricted in what English classes you can take, out of the ones you’re interested in. For example, the class on Shakespeare won’t be offered until 2010.</p>
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<p>That’s a little misleading. The Shakespeare Seminar is offered this semester and next year. The following year both the course and the seminar will be offered, both semesters for the seminar.</p>
<p>I count 26 courses offered this semester in the English department. That’s counting four film studies courses and Bakirathi Mani’s capstone seminar on women’s literature, which I suspect students are killing each other to get in. She’s a hugely popular professor. </p>
<p>See here for link to her speech at Last Collection last spring:</p>
<p>[Swarthmore</a> College :: Commencement 2008 :: Last Collection: Bakirathi Mani](<a href=“http://www.swarthmore.edu/x19144.xml]Swarthmore”>Last Collection: Bakirathi Mani :: Past Commencements :: Swarthmore College)</p>
<p>26 courses offered this semester seems like a lot to me, especially considering that there are English language lit courses in other departments like Russian.</p>
<p>[TriCollege</a> Course Guide](<a href=“http://www.trico.haverford.edu/cgi-bin/courseguide/cgi-bin/search.cgi]TriCollege”>http://www.trico.haverford.edu/cgi-bin/courseguide/cgi-bin/search.cgi)</p>
<p>Looks as if there’s a Shakespeare class and a seminar offered this coming fall.</p>
<p>Swarthmore is a FAR better school than Geogetown! It’s in a completely different league, and it costs the same.</p>
<p>interesteddad: But English seminars are available only to juniors and seniors who have the approval of the chair of the English department, so I won’t be able to take it next fall. Similarly, I am not able to take Professor Mani’s seminar on women’s literature, and I’m not interested in film studies. </p>
<p>26 courses may seem like a lot, but you have to take out all the courses which you are not eligible to take. You really don’t have 26 options. Take a look at the current proposed (not yet finalized) list of courses offered in fall 2009: [Swarthmore</a> College :: English Literature :: Courses](<a href=“http://www.swarthmore.edu/x10026.xml]Swarthmore”>http://www.swarthmore.edu/x10026.xml)</p>
<p>23 courses offered next fall, in addition to some new FYS and mid-level course which I did not count. Let’s say I want to take a course next fall in English. I will be a sophomore. How many can I take? Take out English 1 (which is for people who really haven’t learned the basics of writing in high school), and the course on the writing process which is only for future WA’s. Also take out the new course, “Argument and Rhetoric Across the Disciplines,” because it’s probably a very basic course. Okay, that leaves 19. Now, take out the 3 seminars which are only open to juniors and seniors. 16. Now take out the first-year seminars, which I can’t take because I’ll be a sophomore. 11. Now, take out the journalism workshop (because I want to take a course in literature, not journalism) and the senior colloquium for course majors. I have no interest in the courses Black Autobiography or Fictions of Black America. </p>
<p>So, really, there are only 7 courses that I am interested in and that I can take next fall. Far from 26.</p>
<p>And yes, I know Professor Mani’s very popular. I’m in her FYS. </p>
<p>HarrietMWelsch: I’ve looked into it more and it does look like a class on Shakespeare might be offered next fall at Swarthmore. At least, according to the link you gave. It seems like it will be taught by a visiting professor, E. Song, who isn’t even listed on the list of faculty on the Swarthmore website. I looked at the Swarthmore English department website, but the Shakespeare class isn’t there.</p>
<p>About Swarthmore and Georgetown: You can’t just automatically say, you know, Swarthmore is way better than Georgetown. I think such a statement is absurd and idiotic. It really depends on what you’re looking for in a college. Professor Mani, whom I mentioned earlier, went to Georgetown and studied international politics (or something of that sort), which Georgetown is very well known for. She even got an internship for the United Nations. A friend of mine goes to Georgetown and, as far as I know, is having a blast, and she thinks Swarthmore is way too small. So I think that Georgetown has many advantages over Swarthmore, but Swarthmore has many advantages over Georgetown. You have to choose based on which college you think will better fit your goals and expectations, so the answer of which is better for you: Swarthmore or Georgetown really depends on the person who’s deciding.</p>
<p>Be a novelist instead of a critic. Create instead of pull apart.</p>
<p>I actually spent some time at Georgetown. The campus cultures are VERY different. Georgetown is very preppy, with sports leading the way. Swarthmore is quite the opposite. While students certainly work hard GT, their devotion to their work didn’t seem as strong as Swarthmore students’ interests. Of course, these were just quick, probably biased judgements. Now that I’ve been at Swat for nearly two years, I’m so happy I picked this place. Large universities, even ones as ‘small’ as GT, can’t compete with the ‘campus community’ atmosphere at Swat.</p>
<p>The link “Harriet M Welch” provided is the official online course catalog. It shows 29 courses in English and Film Studies for next fall, not counting extra sections of some of the courses.</p>
<p>Eric Song is the new specialist in “Renaissance” literature the English Department just hired. He’ll be teaching Milton, Shakespeare, and stuff. So, dchow, you are all set. You can take his Shakespeare class next fall.</p>
<p>I’d probably think about the “Short Story in America” or “Dostoevsky in America” courses.</p>
<p>Poster #10 -While the Georgeteown students devotion to work “didn’t seem” as intense to you, the fact of the matter is that the students at Georgetown are taking 5 courses per term and appear to be doing a lot more work than they are at Swarthmore. There are a lot of universities that require 5 courses per term but it is a rarity among the upper tier of schools to have this requirement. I think someone told me that of the 35 schools that require SAT IIs, (the number is 35 since the 8 University of California schools eliminated the requirement), Georgetown is one of three that requires 5 classes per term. Also in my first hand experience from talking to my peers in graduate school (I attended an Ivy League program), the 4 credit course at all these 32 credit schools had the same mid-term, final and research paper requirements as the Georgetown class in its 40 course curriculum.</p>
<p>vienna man, you’re assuming that one course at Swarthmore is of equal challenge and difficulty as one course at Georgetown.</p>
<p>You are correct, one course at Swarthmore could be of lesser challenge, or more challenge. Without being able to directly compare the professors involved, you cannot arrive at a definitive conclusion the way you can about the volume of the work itself.</p>
<p>But why do you think that you can make a conclusion that at Georgetown there’ll be more work?</p>
<p>see post #12, last sentence.</p>
<p>Yes, but what I mean is that maybe a class at Georgetown entails less work than a class at Swarthmore does? I don’t know whether that’s the case. It probably depends on the specific teachers who teach the classes. I’m just saying that more classes doesn’t always mean more work. In high school I took 6 classes at a time, but I think I work harder in my 4 classes here.</p>