World Languages and Cultures: Classics

Career - what can you do with a classics degree?

Over the course of your working career, you are expected to hold eight to 10 different jobs. Today's employers seek to hire those who have learned transferrable skills that are fundamental to your study of classics – collaboration, communication, problem-finding and problem-solving.  

Our course of study in classicals is excellent preparation for students interested in pre-law, pre-dental and pre-medical programs. It also provides the foundation for graduate work in ancient art and archaeology, ancient history, classics or philosophy.

With a classics degree, you can work in fields as diverse as the arts, business, education, environmental advocacy, government, health and social services, international relations, journalism, politics, theology and translation services.  

Curriculum

The classics specialization culminates in a capstone seminar that asks you to apply what you have learned to solving real-world problems.

Study with our award-winning faculty who pioneer effective new techniques and innovative active learning strategies designed to help you reach a deeper level of learning.  

You will have the opportunity to develop transferable skills in a range of areas.

• You will be a problem-solver and critical thinker who can analyze information, draw conclusions, see different sides of an argument and persuasively communicate. 
• You will collaborate, debate and discuss, developing a greater awareness of yourself and the world, while learning to accept ambiguity, difference and diversity. 
• You’ll be able to build sound arguments and conduct independent research.

Classes in the classics take an applied and experiential approach to learning. If you are unsure of your career path and wish to find your way, a classics emphasis can help you come to understand yourself in a way that is fundamentally different from what it was before. You, your knowledge, your understanding, your values, your creativity change and grow, offering you a richer life filled with choice, intention and possibility. This richness enables you to imagine a new life and many possible worlds that you can then live into existence.

Study the Greek and Latin roots of words in the Word Power course, designed for improving your communication skills and vocabulary. More than that, studying classical civilization will bring a breadth of perspective that few other disciplines can provide.

The civilizations of Ancient Greece and Rome also passed down many of the stories we know and love today. You will learn how to parse the structures underlying biography, history, mythology, and poetry.  

In our advanced readings you will delve into particular writers – biographers, historians, novelists, philosophers, poets. Read about Aeneas, Achilles, the sack of Troy, Heracles’ labors, the flight of Icarus, Pygmalion and Galatea, the doomed love of Queen Dido, and Odysseus’ struggles to return home to Ithaka. Study the cultures of Egypt, Greece, and Persia with Herodotus, the Peloponnesian War with Thucydides, and the scandalous careers of the early Roman emperors with Tacitus and Suetonius. Peer through the theatrical masks of comedy and tragedy as you read the dramatic poetry of Aeschylus, Aristophanes, Euripides, Sophocles, Plautus and Seneca.

For initiation into the mysteries behind teaching the classics, take our Apprentice Teaching course.