My university had the same policy. Despite having swim lessons as a child, I did not learn how to swim until university. I was finally able to swim the length of the pool using the side stroke, which along with the backstroke is the only thing I can barely manage. My problem with the crawl/freestyle (or whatever it's called) is breathing -- even when I was in good enough shape to run 5-minute miles on land, I would be totally out of breath before I even got to the end of the pool.

I used to swim a lot more but was never great at it--although I once did the 1 mile swim thing in boy scouts. These days I tend to prefer side stroke when I swim.