Swarthmore, like all liberal arts colleges, gives students a wide foundation of knowledge across disciplines. The distribution requirements here are pretty simple: at least three courses, from at least two different departments, in each of the three academic divisions: Natural Sciences (including engineering), Social Sciences, and Humanities. As a biology major, I fulfilled my natural science distribution requirement in the first semester (by taking two courses and receiving a credit from my AP math score). Social sciences took two semesters, but I’m just now completing my humanities requirements as a junior. I wasn’t avoiding humanities courses, I was just waiting until the ones that I was really interested in taking were offered. These three humanities courses have turned out to be some of my favorite courses, and I’d like to share with you a little of what made them special.
I took my first humanities course, Art History 002: The Western Tradition taught by Associate Professor of Art History Patricia Reilly, first semester of my first year. This was very fortuitous because the course involved a significant amount of travel into Philadelphia to visit art museums. If I hadn’t taken this course, I would never have ventured into the city three times during my first three months on campus. It was advertised as an “introductory survey” covering art from “cave paintings to the Sistine ceiling,” which I really appreciated since I was new to the study of art history. At some schools, an art history class might involve memorizing lots of names, dates, and artworks. Not at Swarthmore. I learned about major movements in art and important artists, but the focus was definitely on learning to think critically about art and share ideas effectively. I especially enjoyed the final project—we made a video about the Barnes Foundation, which included on-site filming and an interview with their director of research, interpretation, and education.
Now, as a junior, I’m completing my second and third humanities credits, in theater and music. Theater 002: Acting I is taught by Assistant Professor of Theater Jude Sandy, who is very enthusiastic about acting, and has a personality that one could only describe as “huge.” The class meets for four hours on Monday afternoons, but the variety of activities makes the time go quickly. We start with various exploratory warm-up exercises to get us moving and get us out of our comfort zones—eye contact games, crawling around the space with our eyes closed, practicing our monologue at various volume levels, etc. Then we have conversations about the class readings or a play that we watched the previous week (either online or in Philadelphia). Part of the class is also devoted to practicing our scenes and getting feedback from classmates and the professor. Some of the exercises definitely push me out of my comfort zone, but the class is a safe space to explore and laugh together—basically, a lot of fun!
Music 1A: 1,000 Years of Musical Firsts, is my favorite humanities course that I’ve taken so far at Swarthmore (and maybe my favorite class, period). Taught by Associate Professor of Music James Blasina, this course explores great works in Western music through in-depth study of the premiere of a different musical work each week. We consider the musical composition in tandem with the historical context in which the works were composed and premiered, and Professor Blasina lectures by telling stories, which results in a course that I find to be really interesting! With only eight students, this class is the smallest I’ve had at Swarthmore so far, and the combination of the interesting material, Professor Blasina’s engaging teaching style, and the close-knit class atmosphere has been a really positive experience for me. We’ve studied works by Bach, Beethoven, Berg, Byrd, Handel, Monteverdi, Mozart, Price, Stravinsky, and Wagner. I was familiar with some of these composers and others were completely new to me, but I gained a new understanding and appreciation of all of them. Two of my favorites pieces were Handel’s Messiah and Symphony No. 1 by Florence Price, a composer I hadn’t even heard of before taking this course. I’m looking forward to our last two pieces: Oliver Messaien’s Quartet for the End of Time (first performed in Stalag VIIIA, Poland, 1941) and Leonard Bernstein’s West Side Story (premiered NYC, 1957). The first will tie into the Holocaust history class that I took last semester (HIST 037), the second into my love of musical theatre and dance.
No matter what your major is, you will have the opportunity to take courses at Swarthmore that are in totally different areas. This is true whether you are a philosophy major taking a course in chemistry, an economics major taking a course in religion, or an engineering major taking a course in art history. In fact, since you are required to take at least 20 classes outside of your major, you will have many chances to explore a broad range of courses. Choose carefully, and they might be some of the highlights of your Swarthmore career!
