My junior year has been my favorite year at Swarthmore so far. From taking intellectually stimulating courses like ECON082: Political Economy of Africa, to experiencing Philadelphia through the Tri-Co Philly Program, and organizing events for the Swarthmore Urbanists (my student club), the last academic year was academically and socially rewarding. However, I rarely take intentional pictures of my life’s endeavors, and as such, my camera roll is filled with some wonderfully candid photos which I’ve decided to share to provide a glimpse into the life of a Swattie.

This is one of my first photos I took in my junior year and is of a SEPTA Regional Rail train travelling on a viaduct that crosses Crum Woods—Swarthmore College’s 200-acre woodlands.

I arrived early at Swarthmore to partake in training for my on-campus job as a Resident Assistant (RA) which happened to overlap with International Student Orientation. Feeling nostalgic for my time in orientation, I decided to (politely) crash the bonfire event taking the Woods where I took the picture.  The image speaks of the duality of Swarthmore’s location as a leafy green campus located in a dense metropolis with an extensive public transportation network.

In the Fall 2025 semester, I took an architecture course titled “Mapping Infrastructural Movements”.  This photo was taken when I visited McCabe Library to access super-old maps of the Swarthmore Borough to examine how the adoption of the automobile altered the suburb’s-built environment. The course increased my appreciation for maps and challenged me to experiment with creative methods of map-making, including physical sketching and videotaping. The class was super engaging because we went on many class trips, including to a sewage treatment plant, planning department office, and the Crum Woods! My final course portfolio looked at public transportation infrastructure in the Delaware Valley region with particular emphasis on the 109 Bus—a bus route that runs through Swarthmore and other neighboring suburbs.

Every year, Philadelphia hosts CollegeFest—a weekend where students in the region can access over 25 Philly-area sites for free! Last CollegeFest, I went to the Philadelphia Zoo for free, where I found this hilariously bizarre sign (perhaps people are watching too much Tiger King?).

Philadelphia offers so many academic, career, and social opportunities for Swarthmore students, all accessible through the College’s SEPTA UPass Program which provides effectively free and unlimited public transportation. Last year, I really felt that I made the most of the city! I went on a tour with Pulitzer Prize-winning architecture critic Inga Saffron, participated in an urban planning networking experience, and went to a Philadelphia School of Circus Arts performance.

Oh deer! It’s a wild deer on Swarthmore’s campus!!

One of the best stations in Swarthmore’s dining hall is the soup station. While they typically serve a range of ‘regular’ soups—like tomato, pumpkin, and Italian wedding—they sometimes have adventurous options, like this “Cheese Steak Soup”. If you can’t tell, most of the dining hall staff are from the Philly region and love to show their love for the city.

Another dining hall photo! This image is of some incredibly well-prepared steak during our annual harvest dinner, when the dining hall staff prepare some delicious food harvested from nearby farms. I really appreciate that the College completely owns all our dining facilities, rather than outsourcing to a dining vendor, and that the dining staff work incredibly hard to make nutritious food for students with locally sourced ingredients.

Apart of Swarthmore’s dining plan, students get a certain number of ‘Swat Points’ which they can spend at most eateries in the Swarthmore Town Center, including the Swarthmore Co-Op—our local grocery store and the third oldest food co-operative in the nation. My friends picked up this “Peruvian Pepper Jam”, some brie, and crackers from the Co-Op using their Points and we ate it together. Genuinely, this combo was one of the most delicious snacks I’ve ever eaten in my life!

More maps! For my Art History course on the Architecture and Urbanism of Philadelphia, I researched the development of a tiny municipality on the border of Philadelphia called Millbourne. I used a lot of geospatial data to explore the demographic transition of the Borough using some of the many free tools that Swarthmore provides. This image was taken when I got distracted on PolicyMap (a mapping application) and began exploring where in the Philadelphia region the highest proportion of people of Sri Lankan ancestry live. Let’s just say Swatties come up with weird ways to procrastinate…

Swarthmore and the Philadelphia region provide so many opportunities for students that it’s hard for me to keep track of my junior year experiences. But looking back at my camera roll provided a moment of reflection to bring to close my very fulfilling academic year.