What quality do you think admissions should be looking for in prospective students?
Brandon Castaño ’27: You should be looking for people passionate about whatever interests them. They should also be looking for the shortest people. I think we need more short people, to kind of, like, find community for my 5’4” self and to balance out the athletes, because they kind of skew the data. This needs to be a short community, not an average community. We should start an affinity group for short people. If there’s a club for milk, there should be a club for short people.
Lena Habtu ’26: I think that a little bit of silliness, a little bit of whimsy is needed. I mentioned Taylor Swift in my interview.
Zuyuan Zhou ’29: People who clean up after themselves in the restrooms, in the showers. People who don’t leave their hair on the shower wall and who wipe the toilet seat when they’re done — especially men. Also, knowing how to do their laundry and manage their time when they’re doing loads. That should be mandatory.
Aya Gilad-Muth ’28: Flexibility. Things never go the way you plan them to go, so you need to be able to adjust.
Ara-Oluwa Jacob ’27: People who say hi and wave. Just general friendliness. It’s just the little things. Why are you walking past me like we don’t know each other if we’ve had a class together all semester? Why are we pretending we don’t know each other?
Germain Hirwa ’27: Swarthmore students are more nerdy, so I would say, in order to make the school more vibrant and social, it would be good to have some more social qualities. Most people here are nerds and spend most of their time studying, so it would be good to have people to give a different perspective and aspect of being a student.
Ari Sheik ’27: I think there’s a balance of grit and kindness and we need to scout people with both, because there’s too many people with just one. There are lots of people here with kindness but no grit, which is fine, but we need to get some more with both, it’s the most important quality.
Kaellen Lee ’27: If they’re gonna recruit so many athletes, they need to look for better athletes. For a D3 school that’s mostly about academics, they need to find better athletes. I looked at some stats yesterday for the baseball team, and some of the baseball players do not have good stats.
Sophie James ’29: I think they’re obsessed with everybody being quirky, so maybe deviate or switch it up a bit. I would also say I’d like to see some more economic diversity among different classes at Swarthmore.
Cameron Samek ’29: I think that they should look for a diverse student body; one of the strengths of this campus is that there’s a lot of diversity. And also they should focus on academically strong candidates I would say in all fields: STEM-focused people, great writers. And I think they should bring back standardized testing, because it’s tough to regulate different grades from different schools.
What is the most understaffed department?
Brandon Castaño ’27: I wanna say LALS: Latin American and Latino Studies. But then again, it only serves a small student body as well, there’s only one person in the major. So maybe that’s why it’s so small.
Lena Habtu ’26: I think the most understaffed program is Arabic. Running on three professors right now.
Zuyuan Zhou ’29: I think lowkey the Chinese department. They’re all visiting professors and they’re untenured.
Ara-Oluwa Jacob ’27: Definitely [environmental services]. There’s an EVS tech working like three buildings, it’s insane. And she has to work ML, too. I think the academic departments are fine. Maybe the professors need to start cleaning.
Germain Hirwa ’27: Maybe something to do with arts. I don’t know, I’ve never taken any arts classes, I’m just assuming.
Ari Sheik ’27: Probably [engineering]. They have people teaching classes that are like 105 years old. They’ve got dudes who published papers in like 1955 still out here teaching.
Kaellen Lee ’27: The bio department definitely. They lost like four or five people last year. And also some of the people they do have are … not good. At least that’s the word on the street.
Sophie James ’29: Probably some language programs — I just don’t hear much from them.
Cameron Samek ’29: I have no idea… maybe gender studies. Well, maybe it’s overstaffed actually, who knows.
Aya Gilad-Muth ’28: I’d say the math department, because they don’t have enough staff to do the classes I want them to do.
Describe your Swat day from hell.
Brandon Castaño ’27: I wake up at 8:30, for my 9:30 class. So I wake up on time, instead of waking up 30 minutes before class starts. And then I go to class. And then I have class until 11:30 before yoga. Wait, I don’t know what my Swat day from hell looks like! Are we just doing a hypothetical, or just like my normal schedule? I don’t get it. Maybe like, two seminars. One in the morning, one at night, and in between that you’re TAing, you have a club meeting as well. And then after your second seminar you have an assignment due at midnight. But you stay up later than that to finish it because your professor’s really chill, but too chill. So that’s an average day from hell for me.
Aya Gilad-Muth ’28: Literally last year: 8:30 classes, three back-to-backs, short lunch break, and then one of those 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. classes, and then I had to tutor at Chester after that — it was insane. And then you have to shower and everything before going to bed. It was bad.
Lena Habtu ’26: Ok, I can only think of really little things. I hate the smell of dish drop. So any day that dish drop is particularly pungent is a day from hell for me. Any rainy day on this campus is a day from hell. A rainy day where I have to walk to the [Chester Children’s Chorus] where I work. A rainy day for many reasons. I live in Wharton C/D, so a rainy day when I have to do my laundry and walk across the courtyard is a total day from hell. A rainy day because in my first year, my friends were getting their umbrellas stolen. The thing is, it’s interesting because this is a high-trust society with literally anything else. You can leave out a phone [or] a computer, but never an umbrella.
Germain Hirwa ’27: Having two labs in the afternoon when I’m just coming from the Dining Center. I just want to go to sleep, but I have to go and work. And when it’s on a Friday, that’s hell.
Kaellen Lee ’27: Today. We got rolled by our Orgo 2 exam unexpectedly and then we got rolled by our pre-lab questions. Today was the day from hell.
Zuyuan Zhou ’29: You wake up, and realize you have a sore throat. You have a 9:30 class and it’s raining. The rain is flooding down Willets hill, and you have to walk up it, and you step in a puddle, and your whole foot sinks in. And so you’re walking to class and you sound like Squidward. And you realize you forgot to turn in an assignment that was due the night before.
Ara-Oluwa Jacob ’27: Ok, Tuesday — I have an 8:30, right? And I had homework due late on Monday, so I didn’t go to bed until 2 a.m. I oversleep, so now I’m already late to my 8:30. I get there at 9 and realize that I have a quiz for that 8:30 that happened during the first part of class that I missed, so now I have to reschedule that week. I have no time, but I have to take it within the week. And then, after that, I go to another class, it’s pretty chill. I get coffee. But then I have a 1:05 lab. So, my class ends at 12:35, and I don’t have time to go get food, so I just have coffee and vibes in my system. I go to lab and don’t understand what the heck is going on. Confused, lost, confuzzled. After my lab, I have a problem session for math, but I didn’t do the problems, because I was going to wake up early and do it. So now I’m looking confused in class, and I can’t figure it out, so I just sit in silence and pray she doesn’t call on me. And then after that, I have work at Kohlberg from 4 to 7.
Ari Sheik ’27: You’re missing like three shuttles at least, and everything is closed except the allergy station. You have to eat at the Free Zone.
Sophie James ’29: It’s rainy… and the DCC is serving something extra nasty. I feel like they serve some stir-fry variant everyday so I just get the pizza most of the time. So if the pizza is nasty that would be really bad.
Cameron Samek ’29: My worst day is when I have to write an essay for my transition to college writing class. It happens every three weeks — one day of pain and then it’s over.
