Molly Piels

Manners for living in a ‘full house’

This being our last column (whew), we wanted to talk about the easiest etiquette topic we could think of (finals are coming, and we don’t have that much space in our brains for complicated things): li…

Moving in with class

Move-in day is always hectic. There is no way for 300+ students, their families and their belongings to arrive on campus, then find Parrish, their dorm and Ben West without a bit of confusion. That sa…

Learning to attend your classes with class

Regardless of what you wrote in your ‘Why Swarthmore?’ essay, going to class, not the Crum Regatta, is one of the most important activities that occur at Swarthmore. Although the most important activi…

Food for thought: Sharples etiquette 101, continued

Sharples truly is an etiquette nightmare. We thought we’d covered most of the major issues last time, but then we had several conversations that started, “I liked your column this week, but you forgot…

You are what you eat, and how you behave

It’s hard to beat Sharples for convenience: it’s close, it’s fast and you don’t have to wash the dishes. Compared to fending for yourself, it’s a pretty sweet deal. But alas, with familiarity comes co…

Singing, cell phones and YouTube in the library, oh my!

The week before spring break is by far the second most stressful part of the Spring semester. Nearly every professor has assigned a major piece of work that is due right before we all go on vacation, …

The dos and don'ts of dating

Call us paranoid, but in the last two weeks, it seems like everyone has been really, really polite. Opening doors, saying thank you, playing the “no, no, after you” game in Sharples — stop that. Other…

Tactfully confronting rude behavior at Swarthmore

In a phrase, this column will be Etiquette 102. We’re going to assume everyone at such a prestigious institution has mastered the basics, like which fork is the oyster fork and how to properly greet a…