Ancient World Studies

I applied to do Ancient World Studies at UCL and have been invited to an interview day on the 17th March. I have a few questions;

-Is there anyone on here who could tell me about the course? Perhaps a current student? I'd be interested to know what the workload's like, what the course content is like, how you're assessed and what opportunities there are in terms of study trips abroad. Plus any other fun facts :smile:

-Is there anyone else on here who has applied/has an offer/is going to the interview day on the 17th/has already had an interview and could give me a few helpful tips?

Merci tout le monde!

Reply 1

02kvasxa

well, i have an interview on wednesday too, im guessing they'll ask something like why do u want to go to ucl, perhaps stuff on ur personal statement etc............

r u going to actually prepare for the interview, i really dont know how one can preprare for it!

this is probs sooo not helpful....

hope to see u there, whomever u may b lol

Reply 2

campy

OP

9

02kvasxa

well, i have an interview on wednesday too, im guessing they'll ask something like why do u want to go to ucl, perhaps stuff on ur personal statement etc............

r u going to actually prepare for the interview, i really dont know how one can preprare for it!

this is probs sooo not helpful....

hope to see u there, whomever u may b lol

I'll be the one in glasses looking nervous! Yeah I'm not sure how to prepare either. My teacher gave me a book to read called 'A Short Introduction to Classics' but tbh it wasn't very useful...I think I'll just read something fun the evening before (probably a bit of Sappho) and read though my personal statement.

Good luck! And maybe see you on weds :smile:

Reply 3

Kathryn128

8

Mine's tomorrow as well!

I'm just pulling together answers to the obvious, like why AWS, why UCL, and skimming over all the stuff in my PS really. I'm trying not to freak out and overprepare, but I'm not sure that's working.

Best of luck to you both though!

Reply 4

Ex_ante

Hi everyone,

I have just received my interview for next Wednesday. Since it seems that a lot of people have now had theirs, would anyone be kind enough to tell me what it is like? I would like to know the sort of things they will ask me and the kind of things I need to be prepared for.

I am a bit nervous since I have never really had an interview like this before. I hope everyone did well!

Reply 5

campy

OP

9

Ex_ante

Hi everyone,

I have just received my interview for next Wednesday. Since it seems that a lot of people have now had theirs, would anyone be kind enough to tell me what it is like? I would like to know the sort of things they will ask me and the kind of things I need to be prepared for.

I am a bit nervous since I have never really had an interview like this before. I hope everyone did well!

The general impression I got was that the interview was tailored to you. Some people had studied latin etc. so they talked about their own translations and stuff, whereas with me it was a lot more to do with my passion for the subject, being someone who is only doing class civ to as level (that's all that is offered at my school) and my reading outside the subject. I think most people were asked why they want to study classics/AWS and what their specific interests were within the ancient world. And then what happened with me was my interviewer just reacted to what I was saying so we ended up talking about Sappho, the Odyssey, the relationship between the classical world and us and problems/interesting issues of translation. Basically, if you know lots about philosophy or something, just make sure you make it really clear and hopefully they will just interact with you and ask more about it. I had Miriam, btw. I also think they'll refer to your personal statement so make sure you're confident to talk about everything on that. Oh and try and think of a few questions you might ask them at the end, maybe about the teaching style or the study abroad or something. Hope this helps! Good luck

Reply 6

Kathryn128

8

Ex_ante

Hi everyone,

I have just received my interview for next Wednesday. Since it seems that a lot of people have now had theirs, would anyone be kind enough to tell me what it is like? I would like to know the sort of things they will ask me and the kind of things I need to be prepared for.

I am a bit nervous since I have never really had an interview like this before. I hope everyone did well!

Congrats

I had mine with the Head of Admissions today - Matthew Robinson - (I don't know if that's just because they were understaffed), and it was actually really nice.

He didn't really ask many questions, it was more of a roundabout Classics conversation? He was great about letting me steer the discussion where I wanted. He asked what texts I'd read, which of them was my favourite, and why. Rattled on about Medea for about 15 mins; we ended up somewhere near the Euripides: misogynist or not? debate. He then said we were running low on time, so we had a quick chat about the epics I did, which pretty much degenerated into us both slagging off Aeneas and then that was kind of it.

He said it was a 'lot of fun' and 'more of a chat than an interview' and seemed satisfied, so fingers crossed. You never know though.

I spent the bulk of the day winding myself up about it, and it wasn't anything like as bad as I thought it would be.

That said, quite a few people did say they'd been asked difficult unprecedented questions, like things about aspects of Greek philosophy. IDK, maybe it's just that I was quite bossy in my handling of the interview? He seemed happy to let me run out of stuff to say about what he actually asked, and then veer onto something vaguely related that I DID know about, and go from there. Overall from what people were saying, I got the vibe that you could get yourself backed into a corner if you didn't give them enough to work with.

Reply 7

Ex_ante

Thank you very much for your really informative help!

I am now slightly worried because you both clearly have a deeper understanding of the classical world than me. I have a passion for the subject and I have done bits and bobs of it throughout my life (but not A-levels) and I generally specialise in continental languages. I'm moving to classical studies because I have a great interest in it, but I don't have the depth of knowledge.

From what I can tell, if I perhaps focus in on my knowledge of languages and direct the conversation towards how classical civilisations affected modern languages I might be alright. I lived in Italy during my childhood so I could perhaps talk about the area where I lived and what I know about it?

I hope I will be alright!

Ancient World Studies

Related discussions

Latest

Trending

Trending

Articles for you