The Complete Swarthmore 150

  1. Play misery poker: "I'll see your two seminar papers and raise you one lab report and a dance performance."
  2. Soak up the sun on "the beach."
  3. Problematize everything.
  4. Publish a paper.
  5. Make friends with the evening shuttle drivers.
  6. Start classes each semester on a national holiday: Labor Day in the fall, Martin Luther King Jr. Day in the spring.
  7. Use the word "hegemony." All the time.
  8. Make s'mores at a bonfire in Crum Meadow.
  9. Wander Philadelphia's South Street on a Friday night. Bump into classmates.
  10. Wait in line 10 minutes for the pasta bar every Wednesday and Sunday night for four years.
  11. Run the McCabe Mile—18 laps around the McCabe Library basement stacks to win a roll of Scott toilet paper.
  12. Lie in the grass during the "Worthstock" concert the weekend after classes end each spring.
  13. Dance in Terpsichore, a dance recital in which students choreograph pieces for other students. No experience required.
  14. Yell, "safety school!" at a Haverford-Swarthmore basketball game.
  15. Be clueless about what you want to do after you graduate - except in an abstract, "save the world" kind of way.
  16. Snuggle with friends at an outdoor movie night on Parrish Beach.
  17. Sail - or sink - your homemade boat at the Crum Regatta.
  18. Read Foucault.
  19. Assemble a costume at Goodwill and hit a Halloween party.
  20. Try to get eight hours of sleep one night a week.
  21. Pass the swim test.
  22. Eat a Phoenix sandwich while reading The Phoenix.
  23. Learn that it's OK to get an A- (or a B+ or a B).
  24. Be inspired by the class mottos carved in stone around campus.
  25. Stop by "The House" for snacks and spoken word at the Black Cultural Center's Soul Shack event.
  26. Check The Daily Gazette morning email before class, and check the comment sections late into the night.
  27. Go to a professor's house for dinner.
  28. Shamelessly score free condoms from Worth Health Center.
  29. Get a hug from Phineas the Phoenix.
  30. Eat sushi at the Science Center coffee bar.
  31. Leave a party or performance early to do homework.
  32. Read Edward Said's Orientalism.
  33. Volunteer in Chester.
  34. Interview a candidate for a teaching position at the College.
  35. Drop everything at 4:30 and go to practice.
  36. Read, write, or dream about "deconstruction."
  37. Fall onto the ice, or slap the puck into the net, at a Motherpuckers game.
  38. Attend a new play in the Frear Ensemble Theatre, a "black-box" experimental studio.
  39. Be in a three-hour seminar that runs more than four (or five or six) hours.
  40. Let out a "primal scream" - along with everyone else on campus – during Midnight Breakfast in Sharples on the first day of finals.
  41. Randomly run into other Swarthmore students and alums in exotic locales around the world.
  42. Freak out about your high housing lottery number.
  43. Kiss one of your friends. Joke for the rest of the year about how incestuous your group of friends is.
  44. Ask for an extension on a paper.
  45. Ask for an extension on the extension.
  46. Camp out on Parrish Beach as part of the annual Earthlust sleepover.
  47. Get "screwed" at the Screw Your Roommate blind-date dance.
  48. Borrow a Sharples tray and sled down the hill from the bell tower.
  49. Wield foam bats for the Pterodactyl Hunt.
  50. Take an honors seminar whether you're in honors or not.
  51. Study abroad during your junior year.
  52. Buy 14 candy bars and five chai lattes on the last day of finals to use up your meal points—or get friends to buy them for you after you run through your points during the fourth week of the semester.
  53. Go to First and Last Collection in the amphitheater. Appreciate closure.
  54. Take a course in a department you never thought you could excel in.
  55. Go skinny dipping in the Crum Creek.
  56. Join one of several a cappella groups.
  57. Have a picnic in the Dean Bond Rose Garden. Wonder, "Who was Dean Bond?"
  58. Bring your paper to a student Writing Associate (WA) to get "WA'd."
  59. Play your favorite music and gossip into the microphone on your own WSRN show.
  60. Listen to a bedtime story read by one of your deans.
  61. Pull an all-nighter to finish (start?) tomorrow's paper, due at 10 a.m. Skip your 10:30 a.m. class to sleep.
  62. Point out the "inherent contradictions" in an author's argument.
  63. Learn the pizza person's life story.
  64. Go to a physics colloquium, or a lunchtime concert, or a lecture by a returning alum, just because you can.
  65. Chalk the sidewalks around campus with socially responsible propaganda.
  66. Shower post-practice with 12 of your closest friends.
  67. Go to Jamboree, a three-hour a cappella concert held each semester because you have a friend in each of the eight groups performing.
  68. Re-evaluate your basic assumptions about the world.
  69. Be awakened by the buzzer signaling closing time in McCabe Library.
  70. Sing by yourself (or with friends) in the bell tower.
  71. Read Plato.
  72. Hunt for eels in the Crum at night.
  73. Take a dance class for academic credit: African, kathak, contact improvisation, tap, Taiko, ballet, modern, or flamenco.
  74. Sleep through the town fire horn.
  75. Do something good for the world.
  76. Be mistaken for a prospective student during Ride the Tide
  77. Walk through Crum Woods after the first snow.
  78. Mix up Old Tarble with Tarble Pavilion and Tarble-in-Clothier.
  79. Get used to seeing more signs on plants than on buildings.
  80. Check your mailbox after class on the way to Sharples.
  81. "Study" at Paces Cafe over nachos and milkshakes.
  82. Write, deliver, or receive a Ninjagram and enjoy a Valentine's Day full of mystery, intrigue, and suspense.
  83. Be clueless about whether you're qualified for a summer internship, but write an awesome cover letter for it anyway.
  84. Adhere by the "Swat Seven" and show up late to everything.
  85. Create a student activities group.
  86. Sing all the lyrics to "American Pie" and "Closing Time" at Pubnite. (and marvel that the closing song used to be Madonna's "Like a Prayer.")
  87. Expect "Willets Cat" to be a write-in nominee for Student Council Co-President.
  88. Hoard the 10 p.m. snacks offered in McCabe Library.
  89. Watch the sun set over the campus.
  90. Do an externship with an alum over winter break. Realize once a Swarthmore student, always one.
  91. Exhibit your work in the student-run Kitao Gallery.
  92. Hang out in Parrish Parlors at night and wait for people to offer you leftover food.
  93. Enjoy the most delicious BLT at the student-run Paces café. Even better, order delivery.
  94. Traverse the Cobb Salad Specialty Bar at Sharples for one reason and one reason only: avocado.
  95. Huddle in the bleachers as you cheer on the Garnet at a home game.
  96. Have a late-night conversation over wine and M&M's.
  97. Go out for dim-sum and bubble tea in Chinatown.
  98. Finally understand the difference between the two Lang centers.
  99. Get to know staff members and hold up the line in Sharples chatting with them.
  100. Climb Clothier Tower during Senior Week to ring the bells.
  101. Make a waffle or two at Sharples. Then put some ice cream on it (even if it's only Tofutti because that's all that's left).
  102. Believe you can change the world.
  103. Meet with a new friend in your philosophy class. Ask each other the Big Questions. Come up with no answers.
  104. Along with the 300 other students who entered, try your luck in the SEPTA token lottery.
  105. Go to a concert in Philadelphia, miss the last train to Swarthmore. Navigate the subway and bus systems.
  106. Form half of a "Quaker Matchbox" couple.
  107. Watch The Graduate.
  108. Narrow down the list of the 27 classes you want to take next semester.
  109. Serve as a class valet or drive a golf cart during Alumni Weekend.
  110. Go to a Boy Meets Tractor or Vertigo-go show and cry/laugh.
  111. Play in the annual prom dress rugby game.
  112. Raise money for charity at the annual Trash2Treasure sale.
  113. Whip out your old scarves, or high-tops, or beret, or knee-high socks that nobody thought were cool in high school and rock them.
  114. Wonder what it's like in the steam tunnels that run underneath campus.
  115. Go to Meditation Club and find yourself howling during an "ohm circle."
  116. Lay on the grass under the first flowering trees of spring and marvel at the wonder of being outside.
  117. Go to an open mic event and be blown away. Prepare your first poem for next month's slam.
  118. Catch up on your fantasy novels in the secret Sci-Fi library.
  119. Participate in a Mary Lyons nerf gun war – and run out of foam ammo at the crucial moment.
  120. Tell somebody you have never met that you loved their performance or presentation or idea or shirt.
  121. Enjoy fireworks on Parrish Beach during Commencement Weekend.
  122. Freak out when one of your favorite writers/musicians/dancers/scientists speaks/performs on campus.
  123. Start a tradition – like Sunday dinner – with your friends, and stick with it for four years.
  124. Cheer on your friend in the Battle of the Bands whether they win or not.
  125. Wait in line for and hour and half for Rhythm and Motion's biannual show knowing it will be totally worth it.
  126. Spend way too long looking through old yearbooks and letters in Friends Historical Library.
  127. Talk to people who you radically disagree with.
  128. Cite your homework as the best part of your weekend, and mean it.
  129. Walk backwards while giving an Admissions tour.
  130. Float on a cloud all day after receiving a Swarthmore Compliment on Facebook.
  131. Earn the respect of a tough professor – with hard work and patience.
  132. Go to the middle of Magill Walk at night, turn around, and look back at a path lined with fuzzy lights and Parrish Hall, sitting majestically at the top, all lit up.
  133. Buy samosas every week at the Kohlberg Coffee Bar. Blow through all your dining points two months before the semester ends.
  134. Go to a professor's office hours. End up staying for two hours, forgetting why you went in the first place.
  135. Play with the dogs that live in the Bookstore.
  136. Find an empty seminar room in Kohlberg Hall for a place to finish cranking out a late-night paper.
  137. Take a nap in one of the armchairs in the Underhill Music and Dance library.
  138. Pass/fail some classes with no regrets.
  139. Sample some "ambrosial pig" at the fall Delta Upsilon pig roast.
  140. Find out there is a Nobel Peace Prize in McCabe Library's basement – thank you, Peace Collection!
  141. Try to remember that all the flowering plants and trees in the spring are beautiful as you blow your way through your third box of tissues.
  142. Stay up until 3 a.m. studying in the Science Center commons.
  143. Apply for summer funding to work for social justice with nonprofit organizations, grassroots advocacy groups, and public service agencies.
  144. Make a mass exodus to Philly during Restaurant Week.
  145. Write the longest paper you've ever written, and then, after complaining about it for months, tell your friends that "it was nothing."
  146. Wish you had been a student when Odetta, Leadbelly, and Woody Guthrie performed on campus.
  147. Sing in the gospel choir - or just come watch a performance.
  148. Share an Adirondack chair . . . with four of your friends.
  149. Form lasting friendships with College staff members through the Learning for Life program.
  150. Learn something new every day.