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Dual Degree at the University of Oxford

I am a Year 10 student and I want to go to the University of Oxford. For my degree, I am struggling to pick between History and Classics. Is it possible to study for a dual degree in History and Classics at the University of Oxford and if so, how long would it take to complete?

Reply 1

artful_lounger

Universities Forum Helper

Original post by sáf

There is no such thing as a "dual degree" in the UK in the way you seem to be thinking, at least at a single institution. There are some dual degree programmes jointly offered between two universities (e.g. LSE and Sciences Po have one I believe) but these are uncommon. But there aren't ways to study two separate degree programmes concurrently at a UK uni outside of joint honours degrees (where you study the same amount of credits as someone on a single subject course, but split between two subject areas - often thematically linked ones).

Note that the classics course at Oxford fully encompasses ancient history, and you can specialise largely in ancient history (to the greatest extent to which the course allows you to specialise in any one area that is) within that course. Otherwise they also have a joint honours degree in ancient and modern history, although this is much more narrow on the classics (i.e. ancient history) side, as it only includes ancient history options. I believe there's also a lot less language work in general (whereas classics proper is fully a language focused degree).

What areas of classics specifically appeal to you, and what areas of history are you interested in? You may find depending on those interests that a degree in one or the other or the AMH course fits your interests. Worth noting if your interests in "history" are in the ancient near east or ancient south asia then the classics and AMES course at Oxford would probably fit your interests much better, as that covers those specific areas (whereas the history degree tends to not cover those areas as much as they're based primarily in the AMES department).

Reply 2

elilast

Great advice from OP. Yes, you can't do Classics and History, but you can specialise in Ancient History within the Classics course (after the first year and a half), though there's still a large language component.

The Classics/CAMES course is usually 4 years, and AMH is 3.