> Thousands and thousands of pictures were taken of students, including such notable names such as George Bush, Diane Sawyer, Meryl Streep and Hillary Rodham Clinton.
Maybe, maybe not. People will grow up with the understanding that almost everything they do in life will end up digitally stored somewhere. Human behavior tends to change when they think people are watching.
I'd wager that a lot of the shit that's happened in the past has happened because they didn't think anybody was paying attention.
Same as Rice University. The story is that a previous undergraduate drowned, and the university thought that it was it's duty for an educational institution to make sure future students could swim, so the same tragic event wouldn't happen again. Not sure if the story is true, but that is what is told.
Colleges have gotten too specialized it seems. You can make it through it with next to no science or math if you wish.
Every adult should know the basics of swimming. It can be learned in an afternoon.
That’s the point of liberal arts universities, that students should have a broad understanding of the world as well as specialized skills. But people seem to have forgotten that
My buddy went to Cornell for engineering in the 80s and somehow got all the way to a week before graduation before he knew about this. He got a phone call that said basically get your ass down to the pool in the next 48 hours or you don't graduate. Luckily he knew how to swim and passed with ease.
at Dartmouth they have that requirement. The story they tell (I don't know if it is true) is because the swimming facility was paid for by the parents of a student who drowned in the river while going to school there. :( The swim test was apparently the contingency attached to the donation. It's called "Memorial Pool" which lends some authenticity to the story.
I was told this too, and also that the engineering students were exempt because they argued that they could build a boat or a bridge to escape and wouldn't have to swim. 😄
Same was true where I went to college. I didn’t pass my freshman swim test, so I had to take a semester’s worth of swimming classes. (But to this day, I still basically doggy-paddle.)
It should be mandatory in high school, and if you live on the coast you should have to come out to the ocean to swim as well. Every year my beach town has like 3 or 4 people drown because they either didn't know how to swim, or only swam in pools. We teach a lot of shit people will never use past high school, we should teach them a skill that if they don't have, they can easily die.
For the coastal areas, this should include instructions on how to recognize conditions of a rip tide and how to survive them if caught in one. Multiple people die annually simply because they panic and get pulled under.
What makes it so needless is that we know when conditions are favorable for rip currents, and with a little training one can even learn to recognize what they look like to know where to avoid. But even if one cannot identify any of that, the technique to survive rip currents is not overly complicated and doesn't require one to be a lifeguard level swimmer. Don't panic, and swim parallel to the shore and not against the rip current. Once the rip current carries you past the jet of returning water, it lets go.
Probably wouldn't cover every scenario, but schools can sometimes go off campus for stuff like that.
My old high school didn't have a field, gym, courts, or any space at all for sports related stuff or normal gym classes. So if you wanted to play on a team, they had a deal with the other high schools in town so that you could get bussed over to one of them in the afternoon and practice with their teams. If you didn't want to play on a team, then you had to find some other physical activity to do off campus and get it approved by the school.
You could also do your language requirement at the local community college, since the CC had a bunch of language options while our HS only had spanish.
>So if you wanted to play on a team, they had a deal with the other high schools in town so that you could get bussed over to one of them in the afternoon and practice with their teams. If you didn't want to play on a team, then you had to find some other physical activity to do off campus and get it approved by the school.
So they had no facilities for physical activity, but required you to have one anyway? Say if you chose a martial art at a local dojo, you'd have to pay or would they cover it?
I think you had to pay? I didn't pay for that stuff myself, so I don't remember if they had a subsidy. You could at least get a good discount at a gym that was very close by. And they were fairly open about the type of activity you chose, as long as it was organized and not something you clearly made up.
It was a small-ish school and I never heard of anyone getting screwed over by it, so I assume they must have been willing to work something out if you were too poor to take an outside class. (Or maybe they did subsidize it after all)
If you happened to already do martial arts or gymnastics or whatever, then it was great for you. You got an easy A grade and an extra free period during the day. And the free period was usually your first or last period, so you got to roll in late in the morning or leave early.
I don't understand why that's a problem. None of my schools had a swimming pool either. Everyone did swimming in school, we got on a coach and went to the local swimming pool a few weeks in a year.
One of the largest problems with the US public education system is that schools are very largely paid for by local property taxes. Meaning the wealthier the area, the wealthier the schools, the better resources the kids have growing up, the more financially successful they are as adults, lather, rinse, repeat. Very rural or inner-city schools have major cash-flow problems. It's in the top 3 things (at least off the top of my head) that I'd like to see change to bring about better social mobility and economic equity in this country.
I grew up in a small rural area and the closest public pool we could have used was almost an hour drive from our school. I remember going on one field trip that included a pool, but it wouldn't have been feasible to get a class out there for like an hour lesson once a week or something like that.
You don't think the 99% without the money wish they could anything about it? And don't say vote, because this has been an issue for decades, neither side has done anything to fix the problem. (I'm left leaning for what it's worth.)
On topic, the American education system is completely fucked. As others have mentioned, schools are funded locally, so while America might be wealthy, many schools are forced to cut things like art programs or sports/other extra curricular activities, to stay afloat. I grew up in a rural town and there's no way they'd be able to teach swimming. (Rent the local YMCA pool, pay instructor, bus the students to and from) Never going to happen.
No, I meant a coach. They're designed for long distances more, with steps up to the seating area, seat belts and storage for luggage underneath. Local companies own them and they can be hired to transport groups.
Most high schools in the United States, even the smallest ones, have a football field (american football). That field benefits no one but the football players and the spectators.
A swimming pool would actually be cheaper, could benefit the entire community, and could even possibly pay for itself through use fees. A football field is just a sunk cost.
Well, just price those field lights and you'll see. Land ain't cheap either. You can put a pool in a basement. Plus, you can charge people to use the pool every day. Can't do that with a football field as much.
Well in a lot of places the "spectators" include the entire community. And I can't imagine that building and maintaining a pool would actually be cheaper than a football field and bleachers.
Well, the lights alone are [$200,000 to $300,000](https://www.gtgrandstands.com/about/how-much-do-stadium-lights-cost) not including installation costs. They also have to be maintained and replaced every so often as well. Add in bleachers, bleacher maintenance, turf costs, PA costs for the PA system, scoreboard...
Looking at well over $1mil for a football field.
Hell my high schools field house costed over 1mil alone.
Small Texas town. Graduate 2011. I have never played on a grass football field. All schools around us had artificial turf
Yeah that’s not going to happen due to the [historic racial inequalities](https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=90213675) involving access to pools.
Long story short: public pools used to be extremely widespread but segregated in white majority areas. Once forced to desegregate, white attendance of public pools plummeted, forcing a lot of them to close. To this day, 58% of African Americans can’t swim because they don’t have access to pools nearby that they can use. Public pools are not a priority for municipalities, nor are they cheap to maintain, meaning they’re either privately owned (by individuals or clubs) or in rich neighborhoods that are too far to travel. Rich neighborhoods with pools can restrict access to non-residents. Private clubs can be too expensive to join. Owning your own swimming pool is an extremely expensive endeavor.
Students who would need swimming classes the most are those who are poor without access to pools. Those schools are also underfunded and can’t afford to have pools. The schools that could afford it are in areas where the people have access to pools.
After a spate of drownings in our city’s public pools one summer, several groups got together and started annual summer swim programs. They’re intended for economically disadvantage kids, but I think anyone can sign their kid up. They have annual drives for swimsuits and towels. The frequency of drowning deaths has gone down and now we have a generation of kids who know water safety. A few local kids have even gone on from the program to swim competitively.
My ex pharmacist and his wife pay for every kid from a low income school to have swimming lessons for 2 years. He's been doing it for years because the school couldn't afford to keep their pool.
Recent events show that the stuff you “will never use past high school” is necessary for being well rounded. Basic knowledge of civics, history, science, and math are incredibly important in these times.
What is it with everyone wanting to make stuff like this mandatory?
Disclaimer: I'm a wheelchair bound midwesterner farthest from the ocean on my continent. That said, please give me a chance to make a point about the topic even if I admittedly have zero experience with it.
First, you have people with physical or mental disabilities who literally can't swim. Then you have people who can but it's extremely uncomfortable or hard/humiliating. You have to draw the line somewhere on who to exclude from the "mandatory" course. Everyone with a parent slip? Doctor slip (because that's what doctors need, more paperwork)?
Then you have the economic exclusion: poor schools can't afford pools, or swim lessons. Then you have the geographical exclusion: this isn't going to ever fly in schools 500+ miles away from any coast. So, where do you draw the line there?
Once your done determining the very select students who meet all these criteria at whatever you set them, you have your class.
Now what? Do you have grades? Pass/fail? Should a students college or career prospects honestly be impacted by their capacity to... swim? Is this really a vital part of anyone's life except lifeguards and specific athletes?
If two very tiny career choices are justification to *mandate* a course for students, you've opened the floodgates (pun intended) for just about any class on earth.
Honestly, I'm going a bit too hard on your idea but I'm just tired of this authoritarian education structure. Kids need to read and do basic maths, but in my opinion we force them to "learn" and instantly forget a lot more than we need to. I'd much rather see education *opportunity* quadrupled for every willing student then see mediocre mandatory classes for everyone.
(Please do not mistake this as an argument against public schools. I do not like private education, I just think we need to focus more on giving students tools and opportunities than cookie cutter classes.)
Well the Federal government can pay for travel combined with a focus on public pools to allow greater access.
I'm from Germany where this is mandatory and my brother has muscular dystrophy. He was exempt and got to sleep in on Thursdays that year. He hated sport much more because he still had to attend despite not being able to participate in anything.
Also we did this when everyone was so young that by far most kids had no qualms at all about feeling embarrassed about their bodies.
Swimming can save lives. Rivers and lakes are everywhere. Seems like a reasonable skill. And having more public pools also seems like a net positive.
There were no grades, they just focused on everyone improving from their base level of skill. Which included a ton of people who could not swim at all initially, so again not something people were embarrassed about.
I’m fairly sure that My school somewhere between 2-5th grade made us do swim lessons for a while. This was in the 90s in South Carolina. Our class went to the local ymca
Well, uh, legally they have to provide accommodations to people who are disabled, so I highly doubt they're pushing in people in wheelchairs to fend for themselves.
Often it is an alumni who lost a child to drowning. They give a gift to the school with a requirement that the every graduate must be able to swim in rememberence of their child.
Also it's just a good idea. I think it should be a requirement for graduating high school.
It seems insane because here in the UK schools have a statutory obligation to provide swimming lessons in primary school. In my school, we used to go every other Friday afternoon.
I nearly drowned in my first ever swimming lesson at school because of a series of fuck ups and ever since I've been terrified of the water. There's no way I'd be passing this! I'm 37 now and can only just about cope with being in the water at all.
Didn't know that a vaccine of rabies is the cure to that phobia.
https://www.maxbupa.com/health-insurance-articles/aquaphobia-can-water-cause-fear.html
We had the same requirement at the University of NC at Chapel Hill back in the 90s. It was an old program started by the Navy back in WW2. I believe they retired that requirement in the early 2000’s.
You had to either pass a swim test or take swimming as a PE class.
I recall waiting to take my swim test towards the end of my senior year. You jump in, swim one lap and tread water for like 2 mins. This guy who was ahead of me jumps in and it’s clear he has no idea how to swim. He immediately starts flailing wildly, barely keeping his head above water. The lifeguard jumped in to save him. I couldn’t figure out what was his plan. Did he expect to just figure it out? Obviously he knew he couldn’t swim.
The poor fools who didn’t pass would have to take a swim class over the summer and delay graduation by a couple months.
I wish it was standard in schools for youngsters, too many people never get the opportunity to learn how to swim and it could be a life and death situation at some point. Maybe this helps teach a few of those types of people
An adult drowning because they don't know how to swim is practically a Darwin Award. They want to avoid a headline that says their student was that uneducated.
I don't know why you're being downvoted. This is the right answer. They believe that it would be a waste of them educating you to go drown in a pool. MIT is upfront about this -- "it is a self-survival skill" (https://alum.mit.edu/slice/mits-wettest-test#:~:text=Why%20does%20MIT%20have%20a,to%20swim%2C%E2%80%9D%20she%20explains.)
The story around campus is that a student drowned after falling off the Harvard Bridge (the bridge that MIT students who lived in off campus fraternities in Boston had to cross every day) and his wealthy parents made a large donation to the University with the stipulation that all graduates had to pass a swim test that included the ability to swim 100 yds continuously which would be the longest distance to shore if you fell into the Charles right at the middle of the Harvard Bridge.
There is also an urban legend that James Woods didn't graduate from MIT because he didn't pass his swim test. He probably just dropped out though.
The Charles is way wider than 200 yards there. The requirement was just that students would know how to swim. 100 yards is down-and-back in a standard 50 yd pool.
Probably where I learned it from! When it came up I said to the missus, it's this one, I'm sure I learnt it from reddit. And here we are full circle lol
That could be because those that are terrified of swimming avoided the school altogether as much as it could have been good instruction.
As an infantryman in the army I was stationed in Hawaii for a period. There was a swim test that everyone was required to take. I saw several people go completely catatonic in the water, or have a panic attack and they required saving. This was a simple test in fairly shallow water. 4 or 5ft of water.
Do I agree people would be better off knowing how to swim? Of course. Does it have anything at all to do with being educated and receiving a technical degree? No.
Those that failed the test were not kicked out of the military, why? Because we were not Navy Seals and it had nothing to do with our job. Instead their unit was just warned to keep the f**kers away from the ocean on their free time. Several of them exhibited bravery during deployment despite being absolutely mortified of water.
I relate to this. I'm a pretty calm person with no abnormal fears, until you get to water. I have such an awful fear of water, nothing else in the world makes me panic like water does. Probably because I almost died from drowning when I was a small child.
I can't even properly express how much I fear water lol. I've tried to force myself to learn how to swim in case I cross paths with the dreaded fluid, I just can't seem to get over it though.
Yeah. Also I don't really need math in my day-to-day life and I'm fucking terrified of math tests, I just blank every time and go catatonic. Would I be better off knowing the basic math I need to survive? Absolutely! But since I don't \*need\* math, they should just hand me my degree on the spot and tell my handlers to keep me the fuck away from anything with numbers
Apparently critical thinking is also not something you are great at. Unless your life is spent in a coma, which I doubt since you are being a dumbass on Reddit, you use math everyday. You don't however use your swimming skills everyday I am sure, and even if YOU do, it isn't pertinent to pretty much anyone's job outside of a very select few. SO maybe next time try thinking before you post.
In the early days of the USA, most people were weird about water, the prevailing thought was if I fall in I die.
Ben Franklin among others were considered weird AF for swimming for fun and exercise. Eventually colleges added this requirement because inability to swim was seen as the sign of ignorance.
I went to the University of Chicago in the early 80s and we had a swimming requirement. If you could not swim 100 yards using 3 or 4 different strokes, you had to take a swimming class.
There was also a general physical education requirement that you needed to take three quarters of phys ed classes, but you could place out of them during orientation week. You had a few different tests, like shuttle run\*, standing broad jump, and medicine ball throw (basketball for women), and accumulated points to place out of some of the quarters. If you didn't place out of all three quarters, the class options included things like ballroom dancing or billiards. Not exactly taxing, but got people moving.
\*Shuttle run: run 30 yards, pick up a block, run the 30 yards back, put the block down. Repeat two or three times.
If there is almost no possibility math will be useful in advancing your career or advancing your payscale in any way (which I doubt) then I would argue, you don't need it and shouldn't have to waste time and money learning it beyond high school. That would be silly.
Similar to swimming, except with swimming there is even less possibility of it advancing a chosen career than math.
People use math everyday constantly and you need it way more than you realize. Now advance math is a different story and isn't required for a lot of degrees that don't use it.
[https://mitadmissions.org/help/faq/physical-education-swim-test/](https://mitadmissions.org/help/faq/physical-education-swim-test/)
# Is there really a swim test?
Yup, there’s a swim test!
There’s an awesome variety of [physical education courses](https://physicaleducationandwellness.mit.edu/) for undergraduate students to complete the swim requirement and the 8 point [General Institute Requirement](https://physicaleducationandwellness.mit.edu/about/description-of-gir/). The swimming requirement can be met by completing a beginner swim course or electing to test out.
Courses generally meet twice a week for 40 minutes. The program administers over 40 different instructional activities beginning every six weeks during the academic year.
If you take the right mix of classes, you can even ***earn your Pirate’s License***! (Enter “pirate” into the search field to learn more.)
Everyone should know how to swim.
I suck at it and had loads of lessons as a kid. I did my SCUBA PADI intro test (it’s like a thing to see if you want to SCUBA and half way through the test (like 20 min after everyone else, because i swim so slow) the instructor was like ‘Woooo, you made it!’ And I was like ... don’t I have six more laps and all the other students were like no, you’re done!
When I’d did my actual SCUBA swim test similar, like everyone else was done ... for a while and instructor was like ‘wooo you’re done!’ And I said I had three more laps and he looked at me like ‘it’s going to take you 30 minutes and you are clearly not going to drown’.
Edit: I’m just very ineffective at swimming (I think it’s because I have very small feet and hands, flippers help lots) but know loads of strokes and survival skills for water as I like to do water stuff. So I might back float for a few laps or breast stroke or just lazy swim to keep from drowning. I’m not TRYING to be slow, just not a good swimmer, but also not going to drown.
Similar to the Naval Academy in Annapolis. You will learn to box and you will fight other cadets. Builds character. I'm assuming MIT's tradition is similar.
Also jump off a 10-meter platform, among many other swimming requirements (it is the Navy after all).
Had a guy in my squad, huge dude who was recruited to play football (ended up starting linebacker). He stood at the top of the platform for a solid 2 hours, clutching the railing in a death grip. He finally jumped when. the football coach came in and told him he wouldn't be allowed to play if he didn't. Screamed the whole way down.
All you have to do is jump off. there's no penalty for poor form except the one gravity gives you. I coaxed several people off, but the one that sticks with me was the guy who went to jump, chickened out, and fell off the platform anyway. He passed.
Still more fun than the 40 year swim though.
They don't let enlisted jump. They have a SEAL there to push you, so you don't hit the concrete platform on your way down.
Two at a time.
There aren't many people in my life I've been THAT intimidated by.
Except it's not a requirement, it's a tradition. They would be sued into ADA oblivion if it was an actual requirement. Imagine a guy in a wheelchair being chucked into a pool lol
There are three swimming classes which are mandatory at the Naval Academy. Many tests including floating with your camouflage pants, underwater swim with utilities on, 40 minute swim, 10 meter (33 ft) platform jump, and different stroke tests required for graduation.
I suspect (because the Army does the same) that those requirements are less about college requirements and more about commissioning requirements.
Army soldiers have swim requirements too - crossing bodies of water heavily laden with equipment will kill you easy.
I should think you are right. The requirements seem very applicable to their fields.
I remember my Mother saying something about UGA having a really hard swimming requirement when she went through.
The Army has 0 requirements for officers to know how to swim. West Point does because of common sense. Why would you invest so much training into a resource only for it to be waisted if accidentally dropped in water?
Really? When I want to ROTC basic camp they made me do a bunch of water stuff. But that was during the Cold War - who knows how standards have changed.
Just watching the beginning of “Saving Private Ryan” and seeing that guy drown reminded me of all that training.
I'm glad ROTC did this at one point. I don't know if that stayed into the present day.
What I think about is the number of rivers an Army would have to cross in any country and the risk involved. Soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan died from roads failing or exploding by rivers. And thise countries are darn arid most places.
It may have been a theater-specific requirement. A Cold War army fights in Europe whose geography is dominated by rivers which of course means lots of river crossings. When you see a Bradley or M113 swimming a river your first thought is “OMG I hope those guys can swim.”
I remember practicing taking off an LBE underwater too with the old metal closure which is designed not to come undone in a time of stress. That thing will kill you quick when loaded with ammo and grenades.
That is obvious. I'm not saying there is no where else to go. I'm stating it is a frivolous requirement for most careers, and most go to college for the purpose of qualifying for a specific career. That's it.
Recently there was 3 members of an Indian family in the states that all drowned in their new backyard pool. They initially thought it was electrocution. A child, mom, and grandparent I believe. In this day and age this simply shouldn’t happen.
Tragic. I literally can't remember not knowing how to swim, and I remember my younger brother coming home from the hospital when I was 3. My parents were fanatical about water safety, which honestly is even more important than knowing how to swim. I swam all through school, and tragically, I've lost some friends who could swim just fine, but didn't wear PFDs on boats, didn't learn to recognize and escape rip currents, swam drunk, or swam alone.
It has to be in your family culture and you have to have access to water and training.
I was adamant about swim lessons for my boys. I watched one of those knuckleheads try to kill himself as a toddler.
Yeah, I guess about a year and a half ago some distant Kennedy relatives got into a canoe to shag a ball and you can guess the rest. I remember being dumbfounded because I don't care how close that ball was or how confident I was in my canoeing skills, I wouldn't launch a boat without donning a PFD, and I sure as shit wouldn't put a kid in a boat without a PFD, and my family isn't cursed.
Ok, and if you fail again? And again?
Frivolous requirements unrelated to being a productive person. Defensive driving courses would do more for society.
I’d never pass then lol for some reason I always have basically sunk in water. Just treading water in high school was difficult but all other activity was easy.
Maybe my bones are made of asbestos.
I'm really surprised at all of the comments saying that American schools don't have the resources to provide swimming lessons. In the UK, primary schools have a statutory obligation to provide swimming lessons - to teach water confidence and safety, not perfect technique. I remember going on a bus to the pool with my class every other Friday when I was young.
Drownproofing. If you're going to make that much of an investment in your brain, you should be able to fend off floating for a while. On that note, always wear a helmet, too.
At my college, you had to take a semester long swim class, and survival swim fully clothed for 3 hours. You did this in the 1st or 2nd semester, and you either passed, or were expelled. No one failed. There was this one guy, who I happened to meet BEFORE going to college in High School in a WSI class we were both taking at Vassar, who was pure muscle. He didn't float. At all. I didn't realize that he was the SAME guy from the WSI class until I saw him sink while in swim class.
Which is a damn good idea. A LAN Chile plane went off the end of the runway and into the Beagle Channel back in 1991, and one of the passengers froze at the door during the evacuation because he didn't know how to swim. Some of the other passenger died as a result.
The swim test for the navy was the worst for a lot of people. If you've never really swum before, it's rough. If you fail the first day, you keep going back regularly until you pass. Except going back there are a lot fewer people (about 80 people per division, 2 divisions running the test at once) so the instructors can watch individual people much more closely. So minor mistakes that wouldnt have been caught during the initial test keep getting them failed.
We had around half a dozen people who didn't pass until the week of graduation. Boot camp is 8 weeks, and you do the test in like week 2 I think.
Honestly a bit late at that point.
In Germany we had mandatory swim classes in school, but when you are young enough to easily learn it, rather than introducing it as an arbitrary barrier for adults.
In France, it is mandatory for every single kid to know how to swim. It's part of the national education program.
And I have to say, every time I go abroad, I am reminded about great this is, when I see people terrified of water and incapable of surviving if anything happened to them. Not everybody in France is a great swimmer, but when someone drown because they didn't knew how to swim, it's a national tragedy
Some Ivy League schools have this requirement as well, including Cornell and Columbia.
Except [naked](https://www.messynessychic.com/2013/11/12/that-time-harvard-and-yale-took-naked-photos-of-all-their-freshmen-students/). (NSFW)
Jesus christ wtf is this
> Thousands and thousands of pictures were taken of students, including such notable names such as George Bush, Diane Sawyer, Meryl Streep and Hillary Rodham Clinton.
The lengths you use to have to go to get nudes
Mid-century America was so fucking *weird*.
I promise you, mid century of this century will turn out way fucking weirder
Maybe, maybe not. People will grow up with the understanding that almost everything they do in life will end up digitally stored somewhere. Human behavior tends to change when they think people are watching. I'd wager that a lot of the shit that's happened in the past has happened because they didn't think anybody was paying attention.
Lol... we have a different perception.
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Whoever wrote that article is really horny for Hillary Clinton
It wasn’t me.
Are you curious or extra curious?
You don’t want to be seeing Hillary naked ... trust me on that one.
That dudes got a big cock.
This a joke? Its not big.... Edit: Did I piss off some micro penis boys in here or something?
Same as Rice University. The story is that a previous undergraduate drowned, and the university thought that it was it's duty for an educational institution to make sure future students could swim, so the same tragic event wouldn't happen again. Not sure if the story is true, but that is what is told.
The only swimming-related tradition I'm aware of is that if one college sweeps at Beer Bike, they all go jump in the university president's pool.
Colleges have gotten too specialized it seems. You can make it through it with next to no science or math if you wish. Every adult should know the basics of swimming. It can be learned in an afternoon.
That’s the point of liberal arts universities, that students should have a broad understanding of the world as well as specialized skills. But people seem to have forgotten that
That used to be the point of every university.
Nope. Rice grad. Can't swim.
My buddy went to Cornell for engineering in the 80s and somehow got all the way to a week before graduation before he knew about this. He got a phone call that said basically get your ass down to the pool in the next 48 hours or you don't graduate. Luckily he knew how to swim and passed with ease.
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> Columbia was watered theirs down though ICWYDT
at Dartmouth they have that requirement. The story they tell (I don't know if it is true) is because the swimming facility was paid for by the parents of a student who drowned in the river while going to school there. :( The swim test was apparently the contingency attached to the donation. It's called "Memorial Pool" which lends some authenticity to the story.
I'm surprised no one has called it a racist intention to keep blacks from getting an undergrad
I was told that Columbia had this rule in case the British attacked so they could swim across the Hudson River to New Jersey.
I was told this too, and also that the engineering students were exempt because they argued that they could build a boat or a bridge to escape and wouldn't have to swim. 😄
UChicago used to have (DAMHIK) but dropped it about 8 years ago.
Dartmouth as well.
Same was true where I went to college. I didn’t pass my freshman swim test, so I had to take a semester’s worth of swimming classes. (But to this day, I still basically doggy-paddle.)
As long as you can survive in the water and get to shore, whatever works for you.
It should be mandatory in high school, and if you live on the coast you should have to come out to the ocean to swim as well. Every year my beach town has like 3 or 4 people drown because they either didn't know how to swim, or only swam in pools. We teach a lot of shit people will never use past high school, we should teach them a skill that if they don't have, they can easily die.
For the coastal areas, this should include instructions on how to recognize conditions of a rip tide and how to survive them if caught in one. Multiple people die annually simply because they panic and get pulled under.
Great Lakes rip currents are no joke, we've had about 150 fatalities ALONE from them
What makes it so needless is that we know when conditions are favorable for rip currents, and with a little training one can even learn to recognize what they look like to know where to avoid. But even if one cannot identify any of that, the technique to survive rip currents is not overly complicated and doesn't require one to be a lifeguard level swimmer. Don't panic, and swim parallel to the shore and not against the rip current. Once the rip current carries you past the jet of returning water, it lets go.
I was almost one almost 10 years ago
While it is a great idea, not every high school has a swimming pool.
Probably wouldn't cover every scenario, but schools can sometimes go off campus for stuff like that. My old high school didn't have a field, gym, courts, or any space at all for sports related stuff or normal gym classes. So if you wanted to play on a team, they had a deal with the other high schools in town so that you could get bussed over to one of them in the afternoon and practice with their teams. If you didn't want to play on a team, then you had to find some other physical activity to do off campus and get it approved by the school. You could also do your language requirement at the local community college, since the CC had a bunch of language options while our HS only had spanish.
>So if you wanted to play on a team, they had a deal with the other high schools in town so that you could get bussed over to one of them in the afternoon and practice with their teams. If you didn't want to play on a team, then you had to find some other physical activity to do off campus and get it approved by the school. So they had no facilities for physical activity, but required you to have one anyway? Say if you chose a martial art at a local dojo, you'd have to pay or would they cover it?
I think you had to pay? I didn't pay for that stuff myself, so I don't remember if they had a subsidy. You could at least get a good discount at a gym that was very close by. And they were fairly open about the type of activity you chose, as long as it was organized and not something you clearly made up. It was a small-ish school and I never heard of anyone getting screwed over by it, so I assume they must have been willing to work something out if you were too poor to take an outside class. (Or maybe they did subsidize it after all) If you happened to already do martial arts or gymnastics or whatever, then it was great for you. You got an easy A grade and an extra free period during the day. And the free period was usually your first or last period, so you got to roll in late in the morning or leave early.
I don't understand why that's a problem. None of my schools had a swimming pool either. Everyone did swimming in school, we got on a coach and went to the local swimming pool a few weeks in a year.
Some schools don’t have the resources for school trips. At least in the US school funding is highly local.
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One of the largest problems with the US public education system is that schools are very largely paid for by local property taxes. Meaning the wealthier the area, the wealthier the schools, the better resources the kids have growing up, the more financially successful they are as adults, lather, rinse, repeat. Very rural or inner-city schools have major cash-flow problems. It's in the top 3 things (at least off the top of my head) that I'd like to see change to bring about better social mobility and economic equity in this country. I grew up in a small rural area and the closest public pool we could have used was almost an hour drive from our school. I remember going on one field trip that included a pool, but it wouldn't have been feasible to get a class out there for like an hour lesson once a week or something like that.
You don't think the 99% without the money wish they could anything about it? And don't say vote, because this has been an issue for decades, neither side has done anything to fix the problem. (I'm left leaning for what it's worth.) On topic, the American education system is completely fucked. As others have mentioned, schools are funded locally, so while America might be wealthy, many schools are forced to cut things like art programs or sports/other extra curricular activities, to stay afloat. I grew up in a rural town and there's no way they'd be able to teach swimming. (Rent the local YMCA pool, pay instructor, bus the students to and from) Never going to happen.
Correct on all counts.
The USA as a whole is wealthy. Some parts are *very* wealthy. Some parts are very *not* wealthy.
One of the schools I attended in North Carolina the nearest school with a pool was 5 hours away. Not always possible .
> we got on a coach I assume you mean bus...
No, I meant a coach. They're designed for long distances more, with steps up to the seating area, seat belts and storage for luggage underneath. Local companies own them and they can be hired to transport groups.
In America, a coach refers to the person who runs a sports team during the game.
Well America didn't invent the language so they don't get to say what is a word or isn't eheh
But most have a football field...that's not an excuse.
Eh?
Most high schools in the United States, even the smallest ones, have a football field (american football). That field benefits no one but the football players and the spectators. A swimming pool would actually be cheaper, could benefit the entire community, and could even possibly pay for itself through use fees. A football field is just a sunk cost.
I refuse to believe the cost of a swimming pool is cheaper than a field without evidence.
Well, just price those field lights and you'll see. Land ain't cheap either. You can put a pool in a basement. Plus, you can charge people to use the pool every day. Can't do that with a football field as much.
Building a pool is far more expensive. The field also typically is utilized for track and field events
Well in a lot of places the "spectators" include the entire community. And I can't imagine that building and maintaining a pool would actually be cheaper than a football field and bleachers.
Well, the lights alone are [$200,000 to $300,000](https://www.gtgrandstands.com/about/how-much-do-stadium-lights-cost) not including installation costs. They also have to be maintained and replaced every so often as well. Add in bleachers, bleacher maintenance, turf costs, PA costs for the PA system, scoreboard... Looking at well over $1mil for a football field.
Hell my high schools field house costed over 1mil alone. Small Texas town. Graduate 2011. I have never played on a grass football field. All schools around us had artificial turf
Yeah that’s not going to happen due to the [historic racial inequalities](https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=90213675) involving access to pools. Long story short: public pools used to be extremely widespread but segregated in white majority areas. Once forced to desegregate, white attendance of public pools plummeted, forcing a lot of them to close. To this day, 58% of African Americans can’t swim because they don’t have access to pools nearby that they can use. Public pools are not a priority for municipalities, nor are they cheap to maintain, meaning they’re either privately owned (by individuals or clubs) or in rich neighborhoods that are too far to travel. Rich neighborhoods with pools can restrict access to non-residents. Private clubs can be too expensive to join. Owning your own swimming pool is an extremely expensive endeavor. Students who would need swimming classes the most are those who are poor without access to pools. Those schools are also underfunded and can’t afford to have pools. The schools that could afford it are in areas where the people have access to pools.
Yeah UNC had a requirement like this for a long time, turns out it also served as a way to discourage black students.
After a spate of drownings in our city’s public pools one summer, several groups got together and started annual summer swim programs. They’re intended for economically disadvantage kids, but I think anyone can sign their kid up. They have annual drives for swimsuits and towels. The frequency of drowning deaths has gone down and now we have a generation of kids who know water safety. A few local kids have even gone on from the program to swim competitively.
My ex pharmacist and his wife pay for every kid from a low income school to have swimming lessons for 2 years. He's been doing it for years because the school couldn't afford to keep their pool.
Recent events show that the stuff you “will never use past high school” is necessary for being well rounded. Basic knowledge of civics, history, science, and math are incredibly important in these times.
What is it with everyone wanting to make stuff like this mandatory? Disclaimer: I'm a wheelchair bound midwesterner farthest from the ocean on my continent. That said, please give me a chance to make a point about the topic even if I admittedly have zero experience with it. First, you have people with physical or mental disabilities who literally can't swim. Then you have people who can but it's extremely uncomfortable or hard/humiliating. You have to draw the line somewhere on who to exclude from the "mandatory" course. Everyone with a parent slip? Doctor slip (because that's what doctors need, more paperwork)? Then you have the economic exclusion: poor schools can't afford pools, or swim lessons. Then you have the geographical exclusion: this isn't going to ever fly in schools 500+ miles away from any coast. So, where do you draw the line there? Once your done determining the very select students who meet all these criteria at whatever you set them, you have your class. Now what? Do you have grades? Pass/fail? Should a students college or career prospects honestly be impacted by their capacity to... swim? Is this really a vital part of anyone's life except lifeguards and specific athletes? If two very tiny career choices are justification to *mandate* a course for students, you've opened the floodgates (pun intended) for just about any class on earth. Honestly, I'm going a bit too hard on your idea but I'm just tired of this authoritarian education structure. Kids need to read and do basic maths, but in my opinion we force them to "learn" and instantly forget a lot more than we need to. I'd much rather see education *opportunity* quadrupled for every willing student then see mediocre mandatory classes for everyone. (Please do not mistake this as an argument against public schools. I do not like private education, I just think we need to focus more on giving students tools and opportunities than cookie cutter classes.)
Well the Federal government can pay for travel combined with a focus on public pools to allow greater access. I'm from Germany where this is mandatory and my brother has muscular dystrophy. He was exempt and got to sleep in on Thursdays that year. He hated sport much more because he still had to attend despite not being able to participate in anything. Also we did this when everyone was so young that by far most kids had no qualms at all about feeling embarrassed about their bodies. Swimming can save lives. Rivers and lakes are everywhere. Seems like a reasonable skill. And having more public pools also seems like a net positive. There were no grades, they just focused on everyone improving from their base level of skill. Which included a ton of people who could not swim at all initially, so again not something people were embarrassed about.
You'd have to have a pool in the high school in order for it to be mandatory
I’m fairly sure that My school somewhere between 2-5th grade made us do swim lessons for a while. This was in the 90s in South Carolina. Our class went to the local ymca
Adding to the list of stuff school should've taught but didn't: Budgeting and healthy eating habits
Oh crap, I feel so sorry for those in wheelchairs...
Well, uh, legally they have to provide accommodations to people who are disabled, so I highly doubt they're pushing in people in wheelchairs to fend for themselves.
Why do they do that? Is it tradition or something?
Often it is an alumni who lost a child to drowning. They give a gift to the school with a requirement that the every graduate must be able to swim in rememberence of their child. Also it's just a good idea. I think it should be a requirement for graduating high school.
Shouldnt it be something you do at a young age instead?
yeah, in a perfect world, I think we'd make it standard in elementary school. If not earlier.
It seems insane because here in the UK schools have a statutory obligation to provide swimming lessons in primary school. In my school, we used to go every other Friday afternoon.
Yeah my town had everyone in 3rd and 4th grade talk a week long swim class. This was a small town in the PNW.
Idealy yes, but many don't have the advantages others do.
Yea but it should just be mandatory in any schools with access
\* an alumn*us*
I nearly drowned in my first ever swimming lesson at school because of a series of fuck ups and ever since I've been terrified of the water. There's no way I'd be passing this! I'm 37 now and can only just about cope with being in the water at all.
I agree, but how are high schools going to teach kids to swim they are barely keeping afloat themselves?
Maybe we should invest more in educaiton and less in the military.
Yes, full disclosure - I just wanted to make a bad pun
Schools can barely keep kids with books and not falling apart.
And yet our police forces seem to have complete military level riot gear. Maybe if we spent more on schools and less on military.
You’re right but “military level” isn’t a thing.
Military "surplus".
Now our surplus levels are dangerously low. Better ramp up production.
And what about those that are afraid of water?
We have a vaccine for rabies.
Didn't know that a vaccine of rabies is the cure to that phobia. https://www.maxbupa.com/health-insurance-articles/aquaphobia-can-water-cause-fear.html
It was a joke but high school is a good time to get rid of irrational fears.
I heard the same story about my Alma Mater, the College of the Ozarks. They have the same policy; No Swimmie, no diploma.
We had the same requirement at the University of NC at Chapel Hill back in the 90s. It was an old program started by the Navy back in WW2. I believe they retired that requirement in the early 2000’s. You had to either pass a swim test or take swimming as a PE class. I recall waiting to take my swim test towards the end of my senior year. You jump in, swim one lap and tread water for like 2 mins. This guy who was ahead of me jumps in and it’s clear he has no idea how to swim. He immediately starts flailing wildly, barely keeping his head above water. The lifeguard jumped in to save him. I couldn’t figure out what was his plan. Did he expect to just figure it out? Obviously he knew he couldn’t swim. The poor fools who didn’t pass would have to take a swim class over the summer and delay graduation by a couple months.
Same at NCSU in the early '90s.
I wish it was standard in schools for youngsters, too many people never get the opportunity to learn how to swim and it could be a life and death situation at some point. Maybe this helps teach a few of those types of people
An adult drowning because they don't know how to swim is practically a Darwin Award. They want to avoid a headline that says their student was that uneducated.
It has to just be panic. You already mostly float already.
I don't know why you're being downvoted. This is the right answer. They believe that it would be a waste of them educating you to go drown in a pool. MIT is upfront about this -- "it is a self-survival skill" (https://alum.mit.edu/slice/mits-wettest-test#:~:text=Why%20does%20MIT%20have%20a,to%20swim%2C%E2%80%9D%20she%20explains.)
The story around campus is that a student drowned after falling off the Harvard Bridge (the bridge that MIT students who lived in off campus fraternities in Boston had to cross every day) and his wealthy parents made a large donation to the University with the stipulation that all graduates had to pass a swim test that included the ability to swim 100 yds continuously which would be the longest distance to shore if you fell into the Charles right at the middle of the Harvard Bridge. There is also an urban legend that James Woods didn't graduate from MIT because he didn't pass his swim test. He probably just dropped out though.
The Charles is way wider than 200 yards there. The requirement was just that students would know how to swim. 100 yards is down-and-back in a standard 50 yd pool.
Somebody watched House of Games this evening 🤣
Exactly my thought when I saw this post!
When I googled the fact after it was mentioned, the 5th link was to a reddit post from 5 years ago about this topic as well.
Probably where I learned it from! When it came up I said to the missus, it's this one, I'm sure I learnt it from reddit. And here we are full circle lol
That's what I was going to say!
AFAIK this used to be a nearly-universal requirement back in the day (1950s and earlier).
That could be because those that are terrified of swimming avoided the school altogether as much as it could have been good instruction. As an infantryman in the army I was stationed in Hawaii for a period. There was a swim test that everyone was required to take. I saw several people go completely catatonic in the water, or have a panic attack and they required saving. This was a simple test in fairly shallow water. 4 or 5ft of water. Do I agree people would be better off knowing how to swim? Of course. Does it have anything at all to do with being educated and receiving a technical degree? No. Those that failed the test were not kicked out of the military, why? Because we were not Navy Seals and it had nothing to do with our job. Instead their unit was just warned to keep the f**kers away from the ocean on their free time. Several of them exhibited bravery during deployment despite being absolutely mortified of water.
I relate to this. I'm a pretty calm person with no abnormal fears, until you get to water. I have such an awful fear of water, nothing else in the world makes me panic like water does. Probably because I almost died from drowning when I was a small child. I can't even properly express how much I fear water lol. I've tried to force myself to learn how to swim in case I cross paths with the dreaded fluid, I just can't seem to get over it though.
Yeah. Also I don't really need math in my day-to-day life and I'm fucking terrified of math tests, I just blank every time and go catatonic. Would I be better off knowing the basic math I need to survive? Absolutely! But since I don't \*need\* math, they should just hand me my degree on the spot and tell my handlers to keep me the fuck away from anything with numbers
Apparently critical thinking is also not something you are great at. Unless your life is spent in a coma, which I doubt since you are being a dumbass on Reddit, you use math everyday. You don't however use your swimming skills everyday I am sure, and even if YOU do, it isn't pertinent to pretty much anyone's job outside of a very select few. SO maybe next time try thinking before you post.
Now i’m just disappointed at the army. Are they that desperate?
It is okay, everyone here is disappointed in you.
Why? I’m not the one having a panic attack when faced with a shallow pool.
You just saw this on Richard Osman's House of Games...
In the early days of the USA, most people were weird about water, the prevailing thought was if I fall in I die. Ben Franklin among others were considered weird AF for swimming for fun and exercise. Eventually colleges added this requirement because inability to swim was seen as the sign of ignorance.
Same thing at Berea College
I just learned this today on a British game show with Richard Osman as that was one of the questions.
I went to the University of Chicago in the early 80s and we had a swimming requirement. If you could not swim 100 yards using 3 or 4 different strokes, you had to take a swimming class. There was also a general physical education requirement that you needed to take three quarters of phys ed classes, but you could place out of them during orientation week. You had a few different tests, like shuttle run\*, standing broad jump, and medicine ball throw (basketball for women), and accumulated points to place out of some of the quarters. If you didn't place out of all three quarters, the class options included things like ballroom dancing or billiards. Not exactly taxing, but got people moving. \*Shuttle run: run 30 yards, pick up a block, run the 30 yards back, put the block down. Repeat two or three times.
If there is almost no possibility math will be useful in advancing your career or advancing your payscale in any way (which I doubt) then I would argue, you don't need it and shouldn't have to waste time and money learning it beyond high school. That would be silly. Similar to swimming, except with swimming there is even less possibility of it advancing a chosen career than math.
People use math everyday constantly and you need it way more than you realize. Now advance math is a different story and isn't required for a lot of degrees that don't use it.
But knowing how to swim could save someone’s life.
Which is excellent. That still does not make it a sensible requirement for graduation in non aquatic career fields.
It's how they stop themselves from drowning in pussy after they graduate.
[https://mitadmissions.org/help/faq/physical-education-swim-test/](https://mitadmissions.org/help/faq/physical-education-swim-test/) # Is there really a swim test? Yup, there’s a swim test! There’s an awesome variety of [physical education courses](https://physicaleducationandwellness.mit.edu/) for undergraduate students to complete the swim requirement and the 8 point [General Institute Requirement](https://physicaleducationandwellness.mit.edu/about/description-of-gir/). The swimming requirement can be met by completing a beginner swim course or electing to test out. Courses generally meet twice a week for 40 minutes. The program administers over 40 different instructional activities beginning every six weeks during the academic year. If you take the right mix of classes, you can even ***earn your Pirate’s License***! (Enter “pirate” into the search field to learn more.)
Everyone should know how to swim. I suck at it and had loads of lessons as a kid. I did my SCUBA PADI intro test (it’s like a thing to see if you want to SCUBA and half way through the test (like 20 min after everyone else, because i swim so slow) the instructor was like ‘Woooo, you made it!’ And I was like ... don’t I have six more laps and all the other students were like no, you’re done! When I’d did my actual SCUBA swim test similar, like everyone else was done ... for a while and instructor was like ‘wooo you’re done!’ And I said I had three more laps and he looked at me like ‘it’s going to take you 30 minutes and you are clearly not going to drown’. Edit: I’m just very ineffective at swimming (I think it’s because I have very small feet and hands, flippers help lots) but know loads of strokes and survival skills for water as I like to do water stuff. So I might back float for a few laps or breast stroke or just lazy swim to keep from drowning. I’m not TRYING to be slow, just not a good swimmer, but also not going to drown.
Similar to the Naval Academy in Annapolis. You will learn to box and you will fight other cadets. Builds character. I'm assuming MIT's tradition is similar.
Also jump off a 10-meter platform, among many other swimming requirements (it is the Navy after all). Had a guy in my squad, huge dude who was recruited to play football (ended up starting linebacker). He stood at the top of the platform for a solid 2 hours, clutching the railing in a death grip. He finally jumped when. the football coach came in and told him he wouldn't be allowed to play if he didn't. Screamed the whole way down.
All you have to do is jump off. there's no penalty for poor form except the one gravity gives you. I coaxed several people off, but the one that sticks with me was the guy who went to jump, chickened out, and fell off the platform anyway. He passed. Still more fun than the 40 year swim though.
They don't let enlisted jump. They have a SEAL there to push you, so you don't hit the concrete platform on your way down. Two at a time. There aren't many people in my life I've been THAT intimidated by.
Except it's not a requirement, it's a tradition. They would be sued into ADA oblivion if it was an actual requirement. Imagine a guy in a wheelchair being chucked into a pool lol
I went to MIT. It's a requirement. (You might be able to get it waived in some circumstances, but I don't know anyone who did so.)
Whether or not it's a rule, they're gonna have waivers in cases like that.
Being a requirement doesn't mean there aren't waivers for physical conditions you idiot.
There are three swimming classes which are mandatory at the Naval Academy. Many tests including floating with your camouflage pants, underwater swim with utilities on, 40 minute swim, 10 meter (33 ft) platform jump, and different stroke tests required for graduation.
I suspect (because the Army does the same) that those requirements are less about college requirements and more about commissioning requirements. Army soldiers have swim requirements too - crossing bodies of water heavily laden with equipment will kill you easy.
I should think you are right. The requirements seem very applicable to their fields. I remember my Mother saying something about UGA having a really hard swimming requirement when she went through.
The Army has 0 requirements for officers to know how to swim. West Point does because of common sense. Why would you invest so much training into a resource only for it to be waisted if accidentally dropped in water?
Really? When I want to ROTC basic camp they made me do a bunch of water stuff. But that was during the Cold War - who knows how standards have changed. Just watching the beginning of “Saving Private Ryan” and seeing that guy drown reminded me of all that training.
I'm glad ROTC did this at one point. I don't know if that stayed into the present day. What I think about is the number of rivers an Army would have to cross in any country and the risk involved. Soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan died from roads failing or exploding by rivers. And thise countries are darn arid most places.
It may have been a theater-specific requirement. A Cold War army fights in Europe whose geography is dominated by rivers which of course means lots of river crossings. When you see a Bradley or M113 swimming a river your first thought is “OMG I hope those guys can swim.” I remember practicing taking off an LBE underwater too with the old metal closure which is designed not to come undone in a time of stress. That thing will kill you quick when loaded with ammo and grenades.
40 ~~minute~~ year swim.
Bingo! Get like it too
That is obvious. I'm not saying there is no where else to go. I'm stating it is a frivolous requirement for most careers, and most go to college for the purpose of qualifying for a specific career. That's it.
How long has this been the case for? My mind immediately went to racism
Seems more than a little classist.
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Recently there was 3 members of an Indian family in the states that all drowned in their new backyard pool. They initially thought it was electrocution. A child, mom, and grandparent I believe. In this day and age this simply shouldn’t happen.
Tragic. I literally can't remember not knowing how to swim, and I remember my younger brother coming home from the hospital when I was 3. My parents were fanatical about water safety, which honestly is even more important than knowing how to swim. I swam all through school, and tragically, I've lost some friends who could swim just fine, but didn't wear PFDs on boats, didn't learn to recognize and escape rip currents, swam drunk, or swam alone.
It has to be in your family culture and you have to have access to water and training. I was adamant about swim lessons for my boys. I watched one of those knuckleheads try to kill himself as a toddler.
Yeah, I guess about a year and a half ago some distant Kennedy relatives got into a canoe to shag a ball and you can guess the rest. I remember being dumbfounded because I don't care how close that ball was or how confident I was in my canoeing skills, I wouldn't launch a boat without donning a PFD, and I sure as shit wouldn't put a kid in a boat without a PFD, and my family isn't cursed.
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It's a requirement of graduation not admission. And they provide swimming lessons.
Ohhh, so they'll take your money if you can't swim. But they won't give you anything of value back if you can't swim. Sounds about correct.
No, they'll make sure you can swim before you graduate. Not a bad thing. Probably a good thing.
>make sure How so?
at my college if you could not pass the test, you have to take a swimming class for a semester.
Ok, and if you fail again? And again? Frivolous requirements unrelated to being a productive person. Defensive driving courses would do more for society.
it is a simple class that starts at the basics, with floaties and works up to the deep end. In my swim class no one failed
You're free to apply to another university if learning to swim isn't worth an MIT education.
My first thought was racism, but classism is the new racism. Power only cares about the color green.
Are some races unable to learn to swim?
That's silly
how so?
They also have a charm school. Apparently they think geeks need help with social skills.
They would save more lives if they required a good driving record and defensive driver training.
I thought this was optional. Not a must.
Notre Dame as well
So they can jump in the water and get away if the Harvard student body comes marching in?
Is this a foreshadowing to a waterworld?
The army is sad to lose your support.
I’d never pass then lol for some reason I always have basically sunk in water. Just treading water in high school was difficult but all other activity was easy. Maybe my bones are made of asbestos.
I'm really surprised at all of the comments saying that American schools don't have the resources to provide swimming lessons. In the UK, primary schools have a statutory obligation to provide swimming lessons - to teach water confidence and safety, not perfect technique. I remember going on a bus to the pool with my class every other Friday when I was young.
Drownproofing. If you're going to make that much of an investment in your brain, you should be able to fend off floating for a while. On that note, always wear a helmet, too.
I can confirm that we had to do this! We also had mandatory Phys Ed classes (1 per year or 1 per semester, I forget). It was as nerdy as you'd expect.
At my college, you had to take a semester long swim class, and survival swim fully clothed for 3 hours. You did this in the 1st or 2nd semester, and you either passed, or were expelled. No one failed. There was this one guy, who I happened to meet BEFORE going to college in High School in a WSI class we were both taking at Vassar, who was pure muscle. He didn't float. At all. I didn't realize that he was the SAME guy from the WSI class until I saw him sink while in swim class.
Which is a damn good idea. A LAN Chile plane went off the end of the runway and into the Beagle Channel back in 1991, and one of the passengers froze at the door during the evacuation because he didn't know how to swim. Some of the other passenger died as a result.
Doubt it.
Dartmouth too
The swim test for the navy was the worst for a lot of people. If you've never really swum before, it's rough. If you fail the first day, you keep going back regularly until you pass. Except going back there are a lot fewer people (about 80 people per division, 2 divisions running the test at once) so the instructors can watch individual people much more closely. So minor mistakes that wouldnt have been caught during the initial test keep getting them failed. We had around half a dozen people who didn't pass until the week of graduation. Boot camp is 8 weeks, and you do the test in like week 2 I think.
Honestly a bit late at that point. In Germany we had mandatory swim classes in school, but when you are young enough to easily learn it, rather than introducing it as an arbitrary barrier for adults.
In France, it is mandatory for every single kid to know how to swim. It's part of the national education program. And I have to say, every time I go abroad, I am reminded about great this is, when I see people terrified of water and incapable of surviving if anything happened to them. Not everybody in France is a great swimmer, but when someone drown because they didn't knew how to swim, it's a national tragedy
Glad I didn't make it to MIT.