"I didn't know Classics was a thing.... a field."

[yvonne]

Great article about a college student who stumbles into a Classics class just to check a box and becomes enthralled with the whole field.  Might be an interesting read for those of us with students studying Latin & Greek.

 

ETA: It also made me think how fortunate this student was to stumble into a field that she loves. I wonder what path she'd be on if she hadn't?  Some treadmill?  And then I wonder... how do I maximize the chances of my own children finding/igniting their passion?  I guess it's a matter of finding a broad range of experiences to which to expose them.

[In The Great White North]

The first thing I noticed was the fact that, although she was a transfer student, so presumably should have had at least one year worth of credits, she still needed four  more years to graduate.

[rdj2027]

I "lost" credits when I switched majors within the same university and had to add an extra year because there were several classes that were required for my new major but only taught every other year.

The first thing I noticed was the fact that, although she was a transfer student, so presumably should have had at least one year worth of credits, she still needed four  more years to graduate.

 

This doesn't strike me as odd -- she added a major, to double major in English and Classics, and I'm guessing that the Classics major at UC Boulder is set up to take four years from scratch, no matter how many gen ed requirements you've got out of the way.

[Anacharsis]

ETA: It also made me think how fortunate this student was to stumble into a field that she loves. I wonder what path she'd be on if she hadn't?  Some treadmill?  And then I wonder... how do I maximize the chances of my own children finding/igniting their passion?  I guess it's a matter of finding a broad range of experiences to which to expose them.

 

Well, there has to be some balance here. Even if a person falls deeply in love with the Greeks and Romans, the market demand for Classics degrees is not large; a Classics degree may be a worthwhile purchase, but only if the money is already available to spend on it -- it will not pay for itself.

 

A liberal education is one of the greatest gifts a parent can give their children growing up, because to be honest, they probably aren't all that "līber" in the larger scope of things. The temporary freedom as children that allows them to experience that education is bought through the hard work of their parents. In the U.S., at least, most citizens are landless; they owe rent to a landlord or mortgage to a bank who can evict or foreclose upon them when they are not paid regularly. University education gets more and more expensive each year, and many students can end up with large debts. When all that a person has to sell is their labor, the person who is willing to learn what the wealthy wish to purchase is the one who has a chance to escape their state and become a free land-owner. In general, these skills are not the liberal arts, but those that are "obnoxĭus" :) -- office skills, accounting, computer programming and engineering with an eye for business requirements, HR, logistics, sales and marketing, etc.

 

I agree that it's important to warn about the "treadmill". In the 1950s in the U.S., the salaryman treadmill produced folks like Rabbit Angstrom from John Updike's "Rabbit, Run" or Sloan Wilson's "Man in the Grey Flannel Suit" -- people who were financially secure but desperately unhappy, and it is important to avoid that. On the other hand, I've noticed a lot more younger folks bitterly disillusioned after going through school following their passions only to learn that those passions would not make ends meet, such as those who wrote these letters to The Atlantic, not knowing how to reconcile the two states -- the free mind and the treadmill.

[Barbara H]

At some schools classics is often an add on or second major. Because it is interdisciplinary often credits can come from a wide variety of other departments (art history, history, philosophy, religion). So particularly for students who have a major in a related field it can sometimes be added without necessarily adding a lot of extra credits.

 

As far as graduation, frankly it is really good that she could make it out in five years with two majors. The four year graduation rate at University of Colorado is less than 50% and that's for people who started as freshman and didn't transfer.

At some schools classics is often an add on or second major. Because it is interdisciplinary often credits can come from a wide variety of other departments (art history, history, philosophy, religion). So particularly for students who have a major in a related field it can sometimes be added without necessarily adding a lot of extra credits.

 

While you may not need a bunch of extra credits, you may need more semesters.  I'm guessing a classics major at Boulder requires at least three years of a classical language, which certainly needs to be taken sequentially, and probably aren't offered in the summer.  So, if halfway through your first semester as a transfer student, you suddenly decide to add a Classics major, and first semester Latin/Greek/Whatever isn't offered in the spring semester, it's going to take four years to finish.

[Barbara H]

While you may not need a bunch of extra credits, you may need more semesters.  I'm guessing a classics major at Boulder requires at least three years of a classical language, which certainly needs to be taken sequentially, and probably aren't offered in the summer.  So, if halfway through your first semester as a transfer student, you suddenly decide to add a Classics major, and first semester Latin/Greek/Whatever isn't offered in the spring semester, it's going to take four years to finish.

 

I agree this can be a problem with a lot of majors really. What we often see with students adding a classics major at our state university is that they do so after they've taken Latin or Greek to meet their foreign language requirement. They hit sophomore or junior year and realize they could add a classics major pretty easily. Students who took Latin in high school may also place into a higher level course (our homeschooler placed into 300 level Latin so that cut down on semesters). Also, some college classics programs offer different tracks (culture, history, language etc.) so they aren't all necessarily three years of a classical language.

 

I do think it is important that parents understand that more time to graduation is actually pretty common and it is good to talk with your kids about your position on paying for more than four years of school. U of Colorado's four year graduation rate is less than 50%. So, it is not at all surprising that a transfer student would take more than four years. While some states have good agreements between community colleges and state universities, a lot of others don't and transferring can add a lot to the cost of an education.

[EndOfOrdinary]

My son wants to major in the classics, and goodness it is getting hard to find! As stated above, lots of school lightly offer it, or perhaps it is a small minor, but not a major.

 

It has made me wonder what other incredibly interesting majors have dissolved or been pushed to relative obscurity by changing academic ideas.

[Finnella]

My son wants to major in the classics, and goodness it is getting hard to find! As stated above, lots of school lightly offer it, or perhaps it is a small minor, but not a major.

 

It has made me wonder what other incredibly interesting majors have dissolved or been pushed to relative obscurity by changing academic ideas.

 

I know many colleges were closing their Classics departments when I was a Classics major in the 1980s. Fortunately, the head of the department retired and was replaced with someone determined to keep the department running. It meant more generalist courses that non-majors could take (some of those probably became majors too) and fewer 8 AM classes. Now they have four Classics tracks, instead of the Greek vs. Latin they had when I was there.

 

You'd want to research this, but it used to be a good pre-Law major. I was certified to teach, but I ended up going into HR and handling employee benefits instead. The logic skills I learned in Classics transferred over well. For full disclosure, however, I should include that I settled close to the school I attended. It has an excellent reputation, and no one who ever hired me cared what I majored in, only that I had graduated from Davidson.

[EndOfOrdinary]

He wants to travel about and teach.  At least, that is the plan for now.   He is still young, though I do not think the Classics is going to change.  He has always been very involved in classical literature and actively asked to learn both Latin and Greek.  He is interested in attending Dartmouth right now, but that is only because he has heard about their international language camps.