Warning. or so.

<p>So should we just ignore all hate crimes too, hopping that if we do not draw attention to them "the uglinesses will die"? Somehow, I think it is more likely that the ugliness will feel acceptable as a result instead...</p>

<p>
[quote]
If you can't keep gunman/mass murderers, under Psychiatric care and on heavy meds, out of schools, how do you stop people from exercising their right to free speech, however repugnant it may be?

[/quote]

You can't prevent it. But you can create a community that does not accept this type of behavior.</p>

<p>Maybe we can take the lead from the democratic presidential race. One day they are side by side telling each other how much they admire one another and the next day they are on the stump calling each other liars and worse. You can't blame the community for what individuals say. You can of course punish them if they break the law. That pesky 1st amendment, but I quess it does more good than ill.</p>

<p>I would think the biggest disadvantage of going to Swarthmore is since it's such a small school; you don't get a lot of research opportunities. For the same reason, you don't have much choices of class either. Overall, I don't think it's a good school for science and engineering major.</p>

<p>It is very true that the classes are very tough in Swarthmore. Many students have to take classes in neighboring schools to get good grades for their next step of education. This is real hard giving the fact that it's almost imporsible for a student to get on campus parking. Public/school provided transportation are not convenient (not impossible either).</p>

<p>
[quote]
I would think the biggest disadvantage of going to Swarthmore is since it's such a small school; you don't get a lot of research opportunities.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>That's simply false. Every science department has paid research positions, both during the school year and the summer. In addition, Swarthmore students do very well landing summer research internships outside of the College.</p>

<p>
[quote]
Overall, I don't think it's a good school for science and engineering major.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Really? Then, why does Swarthmore turn out so many science and engineering PhDs?</p>

<p>



Percentage of grads getting PhDs
Academic field: All Engineering, Hard Science, and Math</p>

<p>PhDs and Doctoral Degrees:
ten years (1994 to 2003) from NSF database</p>

<p>Number of Undergraduates:
ten years (1989 to 1998) from IPEDS database</p>

<p>Note:
Does not include colleges with less than
1000 graduates over the ten year period </p>

<p>1       34% California Institute of Technology<br>
2   ** 24% Harvey Mudd College **
3       16% Massachusetts Institute of Technology<br>
4   ** 10% Reed College    **
5       9%  Rice University 
6   ** 8%  Swarthmore College  **
7       8%  Princeton University<br>
8   ** 7%  Carleton College    **
9       7%  New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology<br>
10      7%  University of Chicago<br>
11      7%  Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute<br>
12      7%  Case Western Reserve University 
13      6%  Harvard University<br>
14      6%  Carnegie Mellon University<br>
15      6%  Johns Hopkins University<br>
16  ** 6%  Haverford College   **
17  ** 6%  Grinnell College    **
18      6%  Cornell University, All Campuses<br>
19  ** 5%  Kalamazoo College   **
20      5%  Stanford University 
21      5%  Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology 
22      5%  Yale University 
23      5%  Cooper Union<br>
24  ** 5%  Oberlin College **
25  ** 5%  Lawrence University **
26  ** 5%  Bryn Mawr College   **
27  ** 5%  Williams College    **
28  ** 5%  Pomona College  **
29      4%  Colorado School of Mines<br>
30  ** 4%  Bowdoin College **
31  ** 4%  Earlham College **
32      4%  Brown University<br>
33      4%  University of Rochester 
34      4%  University of California-Berkeley<br>
35  ** 4%  Wabash College  **
36      4%  Duke University 
37      4%  Worcester Polytechnic Institute 
38  ** 4%  Amherst College **
39      4%  Stevens Institute of Technology 
40  ** 4%  St Olaf College **
41  ** 4%  Hendrix College **
42  ** 4%  Beloit College  **
43      4%  University of Missouri, Rolla<br>
44      4%  University of California-San Francisco<br>
45  ** 4%  Occidental College  **
46      4%  Alfred University, Main Campus<br>
47  ** 4%  Allegheny College   **
48  ** 4%  Whitman College **
49  ** 4%  College of Wooster  **
50      4%  SUNY College of Environmental Sci & Forestry<br>
51  ** 4%  Mount Holyoke College   **
52  ** 4%  Bates College   **
53      4%  College of William and Mary 
54  ** 4%  Knox College    **
55  ** 3%  Franklin and Marshall College   **
56      3%  Georgia Institute of Technology, Main Campus<br>
57      3%  Washington University<br>
58      3%  Long Island University Southampton Campus<br>
59  ** 3%  Macalester College  **
60      3%  University of California-San Diego

</p>

<p>Is there any competition among students for research position in bio lab?
If several students want to do reseacrh with particular professor, who will be chosen? One with better grades?</p>

<p>
[quote]
Is there any competition among students for research position in bio lab?

[/quote]
</p>

<p>I'm sure there is. There is competition for most of the plum student jobs: research positions, writing associates, and so on and so forth.</p>

<p>For summer research, the students write proposals for the research grants. I don't think it is difficult to get funding for research in natural sciences. Psych is pretty easy too. Humanities is harder to get.</p>

<p>
[quote]
you don't have much choices of class either

[/quote]
</p>

<p>There actually are plenty of choices, but it takes some planning, as in order to have so many choices available, not all classes are offered every semester (or even every year). The most popular/important classes are available all the time though.</p>

<p>
[quote]
You can't blame the community for what individuals say.

[/quote]

Of course not. But you can blame the community for not reacting in a certain way.</p>

<p>There are plenty of classes, but certain classes are offered only every other semester or even scattered than that. Some time it's hard to find a schedule that works for you, especially when you try to do double major.</p>

<p>There's plenty of summer money available in the Humanities and Social Sciences, too. Many Swarthmore students get funding for summer travel abroad, social service stuff in the US, etc.</p>

<p>BTW, here's the application form for summer research in the natural sciences.</p>

<p>There are 35 HMMI funded slots annually (that's 10% of a typical Swat graduating class), plus at least that many funded by various college endowments.</p>

<p><a href="http://www.swarthmore.edu/Documents/biology/summer_research_nse_2008.pdf%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.swarthmore.edu/Documents/biology/summer_research_nse_2008.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>is it harder than MIT? i heard MIT was horribly hard too</p>

<p>I very much doubt that Swarthmore is harder than MTI. But you would have to find someone who transfered from one to the other to tell you for sure ;)...</p>

<p>
[quote]
is it harder than MIT? i heard MIT was horribly hard too

[/quote]
</p>

<p>IMO MIT and CalTech are almost certainly harder.</p>

<p>"Hard" is such an individual thing.</p>

<p>One student may find advanced calculus easy, but writing art history papers impossibly difficult. And, vice versa.</p>

<p>One student may click with a particular professor's style while another student views the professor as an inscrutible alien lifeform.</p>

<p>One student may enjoy doing problem sets. Another may enjoy curling up in the library to read three books.</p>

<p>One student may be further along in the development of the reasoning skills required for a particular class (including the ability to accurately figure out which assigments have to be done and which don't...)</p>

<p>Depending on course selection, study habits, and expectations, any given student can make almost any college as hard or easy as he or she wants.</p>

<p>In general, if you are the kind of student who is going to literally fall to pieces if you don't complete every assignment and get an A in every course, then colleges like Swarthmore (or MIT) are probably not for you. These colleges are better suited to the inquisitive student who wants a challenge, but who is going to be OK with giving it his or her best shot and letting the chips fall where they may.</p>

<p>"a Williams parent who thinks that it's no big deal"</p>

<p>Excuse me, but you're putting words in my mouth (and exhibiting a troublesome holier-than-thou predisposition). I specifically stated that the entire campus was not "unbalanced" by the actions of one (most likely deeply troubled) student who, it later became known, was influenced by her much-older "boyfriend" with definite Nazi leanings (he publicized his views on a website). Of course the vast majority of the students -- and parents -- thought hanging the posters was idiotic and boneheaded (which I also indicated in the post you subsequently twisted to serve your sanctimonious purposes).</p>

<p>
[Quote]
And since the incidents enumerated were perpetrated by an infinitesimally small minority of students (or visitors), the vast majority of students were not affected/"unbalanced" by them at all (any more than they would be while reading about boneheaded occurrences elsewhere in this world of ours) -- except to agree that they were idiotic things to have done.

[/quote]

[quote]
It's still a rather "large" community of 2,000-2,100 students, 300 faculty, hundreds of staff -- all with a lot on their plates. And ideals are nice and all, but not always practicable

[/quote]

Those are your words that I was responding to. Again, what bothers me personally is not that this incident happened (it could have happened anywhere), but that there was so little response to it from the student body and from the administration. And that's why your statement about this being a large community with people having a lot on their plates, and thus too busy to pay attention to such a thing seems so troubling to me.</p>