About my course: Classics

I mentioned before that I'm doing a joint major in Classics and Geography. Classical Studies isn't taught in many secondary schools in Ireland, and as a result many people are unsure of what exactly it is, or that such a university course exists. It is something I have often received questions about while working as an ambassador, so I thought I'd write a little about it.

 

 



The Temple of Hephaestus in Athens
 

Basically it is the study of ancient Greek and Roman civilisation. It covers a huge period of history, from the bronze age to the decline of Rome in the 5th century C.E. It deals with all aspects of life in the ancient world - politics, mythology, religion, art and architecture, literature and philosophy; it is a broad subject that offers a huge range of choice for the student. Much of modern European culture and society has its roots in the Greco-Roman world, and because of this Classics overlaps and links into a wide and surprising variety of subjects, including medicine and science. There is something to interest everyone. This is evident from the range of subjects my classmates studied alongside Classics - English, History, Politics, Archaeology, Sociology, Languages and Philosophy; even some of my friends studying Psychology, Medicinal Chemistry and Music took Classics electives. I took Geography as my other major.

 

 

One wouldn't think Geography and Classics had anything to do with each other, and indeed my subject combination led to several raised eyebrows over the years, from friends, family and lecturers alike. But like I said, Classics links into nearly every subject imaginable, and the two complimented each other nicely. For example, in our Urban Geography module we looked at Hippodamus of Miletus, who developed the grid system in the 5th century BCE, and Roman town planning; studying the process of Romanisation in Classics really helped me understand the process of Europeanisation that I had to study in my Political Geography class on the EU. It was interesting to see the similarities and differences between the politics and policies of the Roman Republic and modern day USA, which we studied in another Political Geography module. An understanding of physical geography is very useful when studying  ancient sites like Pompeii and Thera, and in explaining why some sites, like Troy, Priene and Miletus, are much farther from the coast today than they were in ancient times.

 

Studying Classics at UCD is brilliant. It’s a lovely Department. The lecturers and tutors are friendly and helpful. The student body is quite small compared to other courses like History, English and Geography (Classics has about 500 undergrad students in total, Geography has at least that many in third year alone), meaning you get to know everyone pretty quickly.



 

A Greek Symposium

The Classics Society holds coffee mornings every Thursday and organises movie nights, toga parties and guest speakers. We have our very own Classics museum, the only one in Ireland. You’ll get the chance to handle and study artefacts during tutorials. Check out the video about the museum here. One of the great things about Classics in UCD is that there are no core or compulsory modules – the choice is entirely the student’s, you can take whatever combination of classes you want. This means you can tailor the course to your interests – you can focus on Rome, on Greece, or both; you can focus on history and archaeology or you can focus on literature and mythology, or a mix of all. You can study Latin or Greek or neither. Usually you’re graded partly on continuous assessment and partly on an end of semester exam, which is nice as it means the pressure isn’t all piled on one exam. The continuous assessment is usually an essay or two worth between 30%-50% of the final grade, or a short mid-term test. Sometimes they’ll be fun little projects like creating a wiki page for a mythological character, a presentation on something in the Classics museum, or recreating an ancient Roman recipe (and then having a feast with your class) - there’s often a bit of craic involved.

 



Julius Caesar

Some of my favourite classes over the years have been Intro to Ancient Rome – basically a pocket sized history of Rome from its foundation to its fall, covering all major events and figures; Intro to Classical Mythology – another condensed course covering the major myths of ancient Greece and Rome, including the pagan gods, the Trojan War and Hercules; Homer and The Age of Heroes - you study the Iliad and Odyssey, the great epics about the Trojan War; Alexander and His Successors – focuses on what happened in the Hellenistic world after the death of Alexander the Great, the conflict between his generals over who should control his newly conquered kingdom and the resulting break up of that kingdom amongst the warring successors; Ovid’s Metamorphoses – Ovid’s brilliant and diverse collection of myths that had a huge influence on later art and literature, including Shakespeare; Greek Tragedy; Spartacus and the Slave Wars – the first part of the course covers the three major slave rebellions in the Roman world and the second part of the course focuses on the reception of Spartacus in modern media – you get to watch movies, which is always a winner.

 

 

In case you haven’t noticed from all that, I really love Classics, and I’m so glad I studied it in UCD. In fact I loved it so much I’m hoping to do a Masters in it next year. It’s definitely a course I’d recommend studying. As my friend Rebecca said: ‘Who the hell doesn’t love Classics? That shit’s the best’.

Achilles & Ajax