Seniors stroke toward the end

Dozens of sleepy, somber-faced students lined the Bowman Gray Memorial Pool at 9:30 a.m. Friday, many of them seniors waiting to plunge into the last obstacle standing between them and a diploma.

With only a few weeks until the May 15 Commencement exercises, they scrambled all day Friday to pass the swim test, the final one offered this year.

Mark Zaruba, a senior business and economics major and a swimmer since age 5, had no trouble passing and only expressed his unfavorable view of the exercise.

“I think it’s pointless,” he said. “I don’t think it should make a difference whether you can swim or not for you to graduate.

“(Swimming’s) fun; I don’t think it helps you any other way in life.”

The test was instituted after the University was awarded funds for a pre-flight training program in 1942. It became a graduation requirement for men in 1944 and for women in 1946.

In order to pass, swimmers must spend five minutes in the water, during which they are required to swim 50 yards, then continue laps, float or tread water. Test takers are not allowed to touch the bottom or sides of the pool and are automatically failed if they do.

Senior Jonathan Brome took the swim test Friday and, like Zaruba, was not worried about it. Brome also has been swimming since childhood and didn’t find the test difficult.

He said he waited until the last opportunity because it was a simple task but had the foresight to show up early.

“I was in the first group to go, and when I got out, the line was pretty long,” he said.

Brome wasn’t alone in his procrastination. He said he saw eight or nine other people he knew in line, and senior Prem Thomas had to skip class to attend.

“I had a P.E. early in the morning, and I just didn’t want to go,” he said.

Although the swim test posed no problems to Brome, he said he isn’t sure whether making it a graduation requirement is useful to students.

“I heard people say it’s a valuable life skill, and I can agree with that, but there are a lot of things that are valuable life skills,” he said. “Cooking is a valuable life skill, but you don’t have to take a cooking test.”

But taking the test wasn’t such a simple matter for all students. Brome saw someone who had to be pulled out of the water and failed the test.

“It’s one of those things that if you want to learn how to swim, you shouldn’t be pressured to learn how to swim,” Brome said.

And for future classes, that pressure won’t be a problem. Students starting at UNC after 2006 will no longer be required to pass the swim test and instead will need to take a one-credit-hour life fitness course.

“For people that failed it, they failed something that is not going to be a requirement in a couple of years,” Brome said. “And that sucks. It can be distressing for them.”

Other students agreed. Ronnie Anthony, a senior journalism and mass communications major who rolled out of bed early for Friday’s swim test, said he isn’t sure what the test actually measures and seemed supportive of eliminating the requirement.

“You never know when you will need that skill,” he said. “Things may always pop up, and I think it’s something nice to know, but then again, I think skydiving would be nice to know, too.”

 

Contact the Features Editor at features@unc.edu.