Why I Am Not Pursuing Academia This has been a long time coming. I decided last year that academia wasn’t the right career path for me, but there’s always been a thought in the back of my head which has urged me to push on with it. In my two years of being a visiting lecturer, there’s many aspects of the job I’ve enjoyed. I feel very lucky to have taught at the University of Roehampton, as I’ve been supported by my department, supervisors and have been paid generously compared to other PhD students I know at other universities. I absolutely adore teaching and have been blessed with excellent students who were always engaged. In fact, teaching Classics at secondary schools is a career path I’m still considering and would be delighted to get into. I’ve also had many opportunities which I’m fully aware other PhD students would envy. I’ve taught many sessions for two years, including several lectures and I know other universities don’t offer these easily. I’ve given many ...
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Why Classical Civilisation is Great I have studied both Classical Civilisation (for A Level and BA) and Classics (for MA and PhD) and love both subjects a great deal. However, my education in Classical Civilisation has arguably been the most significant in my life and continues to guide me in my pursuit of Classics. It’s a fact that many are uncomfortable to talk about, but there are some in Classics who hold Classical Civilisation in disdain. Unfortunately, some of them have been Classics and even Classical Civilisation students. Here’s just one particularly crazy story: I was once told by a lecturer (and I’m quoting here) “do you actually study Classics? Oh, Classical Civilisation… Hmm, isn’t that when you learn what the Romans used to eat?” That remark was particularly funny in hindsight, because it was intended as an insult, but I would years later discuss with Andrew Wallace-Hadrill, on...
Classics Students and Latin Proficiency I started learning Latin at 19, and while I’ve read hundreds of lines and devoted many years to improving my skills, I still don’t consider myself fluent. For many years, this was something which always bugged me, and I thought maybe I was incompetent or just really bad at learning languages. However, I’ve learnt over the years that many other Classics students have the same struggles which I faced in my studies, it’s just not something I commonly see expressed or talked about. To be fair, my evidence has been anecdotal: I heard such stories when talking to close friends or those who I’ve met at conferences. Consequently, it was something I always thought a lot about, but since I don’t believe there’s much or any research on the topic, I would never actually talk seriously about. However, one day I decided to run a poll on Twitter to try and get some more concrete evidence. The statistics are of course not completely reliable, becau...