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Have you been to any open days yet? It made my choice a lot easier! When I went to the Oxford open day, I noticed that Oxford (as a city) didn't appeal to me as much as Cambridge. It's also a great opportunity to chat with current students, as they can tell you more about what the course is like in practise, as opposed to what it's like on paper. One of the students told me that the Oxford course has a bigger emphasis on Philosophy than the Cambridge course, which was one of the most important reasons for me to choose for Cambridge. Oxford does have the largest Classics department in the world though!
Cambridge! It's the best in Britain! (and the world.)
But really it's down to the course and the person. Obviously they're both excellent, but they are quite different, so if you can, go to some open days, where you can check out the city too. If not, then there's plenty of info on the net.
p.s. choose Cambridge.
edit:
http://extras.timesonline.co.uk/tol_gug/gooduniversityguide.php?AC_sub=Classics+and+Ancient+History&sub=&x=32&y=10
But really it's down to the course and the person. Obviously they're both excellent, but they are quite different, so if you can, go to some open days, where you can check out the city too. If not, then there's plenty of info on the net.
p.s. choose Cambridge.
edit:
http://extras.timesonline.co.uk/tol_gug/gooduniversityguide.php?AC_sub=Classics+and+Ancient+History&sub=&x=32&y=10
If you go to Oxford you might meet Gail Trimble
OP, have you done any Latin or Greek at all?
Michelle598
OP, have you done any Latin or Greek at all?
Yes, I took Latin and Greek at GCSE (see profile).
I notice, looking through your past posts, that you did Classics Part I and then changed out.
How did you find it? Why did you change out?
I notice also that you and some of your colleagues had difficulties finding work after graduating. This is somewhat surprising ...
OP, I am going to Oxford for classics this year and would recommend it in your situation.
The city is important, but it depends on which one you like most. Cambridge is quieter than Oxford, definitely. Secondly, the Cambridge colleges are bigger, or i should say, you get "small" Oxford colleges like Corpus Christi, Exeter, Trinity etc.
But the course. I am quite sure Oxford is better for people in your position. It has 5 course options, whereas Cambridge only really has two- the three year course and the four year course. Yes i know cambridge people will tell me the three year is flexible, but it isnt the same as having 5 differently structured courses.
plus, especially relevant if you are good at classics, oxford's is a more linguistically based and rigorous course. you always do 4 years, you have to do homer and virgil. oh and bear in mind that oxford's selection policy is really how well you do in the various university wide language tests. cambridge is more down to the college.
so weigh up the pros and cons.
i chose oxford because i thought it was a far superior course, but more importantly because i thought cambridge was boring when i visited and oxford a much more inspiring, bustling city. cambridge seemed a nice, but very quiet country town.
so balance up the options
The city is important, but it depends on which one you like most. Cambridge is quieter than Oxford, definitely. Secondly, the Cambridge colleges are bigger, or i should say, you get "small" Oxford colleges like Corpus Christi, Exeter, Trinity etc.
But the course. I am quite sure Oxford is better for people in your position. It has 5 course options, whereas Cambridge only really has two- the three year course and the four year course. Yes i know cambridge people will tell me the three year is flexible, but it isnt the same as having 5 differently structured courses.
plus, especially relevant if you are good at classics, oxford's is a more linguistically based and rigorous course. you always do 4 years, you have to do homer and virgil. oh and bear in mind that oxford's selection policy is really how well you do in the various university wide language tests. cambridge is more down to the college.
so weigh up the pros and cons.
i chose oxford because i thought it was a far superior course, but more importantly because i thought cambridge was boring when i visited and oxford a much more inspiring, bustling city. cambridge seemed a nice, but very quiet country town.
so balance up the options
jammy21
Yes, I took Latin and Greek at GCSE (see profile).
I notice, looking through your past posts, that you did Classics Part I and then changed out.
How did you find it? Why did you change out?
I notice also that you and some of your colleagues had difficulties finding work after graduating. This is somewhat surprising ...
I notice, looking through your past posts, that you did Classics Part I and then changed out.
How did you find it? Why did you change out?
I notice also that you and some of your colleagues had difficulties finding work after graduating. This is somewhat surprising ...
Ok, if you only have GCSE then I guess you'll be applying for the Prelims course, which you should find alright if you've already done quite a bit of Latin. I personally found the Prelims year and Part 1A reallly hard, as I hadn't done any Greek and only a tiny bit of Latin in Years 7-9 at school. I wasn't really cut out for a language degree - I wanted to focus on the literature without studying it in the original Latin and Greek, which was what I'd been able to do when doing Classical Civilisation at school, but couldn't do at Cambridge. In any case, I did the Prelims year 4 years ago now and was in only the second year group to do it - it had a lot of teething problems, and four out of the nine of us who were doing it changed to different courses, but hopefully the Faculty's sorted out the issues now.
Why is it surprising that I and others of my cohort have had problems finding jobs? A Cambridge degree won't allow you to just walk into any job you want, and there is a recession on...
kirkh1
OP, I am going to Oxford for classics this year and would recommend it in your situation.
The city is important, but it depends on which one you like most. Cambridge is quieter than Oxford, definitely. Secondly, the Cambridge colleges are bigger, or i should say, you get "small" Oxford colleges like Corpus Christi, Exeter, Trinity etc.
But the course. I am quite sure Oxford is better for people in your position. It has 5 course options, whereas Cambridge only really has two- the three year course and the four year course. Yes i know cambridge people will tell me the three year is flexible, but it isnt the same as having 5 differently structured courses.
plus, especially relevant if you are good at classics, oxford's is a more linguistically based and rigorous course. you always do 4 years, you have to do homer and virgil. oh and bear in mind that oxford's selection policy is really how well you do in the various university wide language tests. cambridge is more down to the college.
so weigh up the pros and cons.
i chose oxford because i thought it was a far superior course, but more importantly because i thought cambridge was boring when i visited and oxford a much more inspiring, bustling city. cambridge seemed a nice, but very quiet country town.
so balance up the options
The city is important, but it depends on which one you like most. Cambridge is quieter than Oxford, definitely. Secondly, the Cambridge colleges are bigger, or i should say, you get "small" Oxford colleges like Corpus Christi, Exeter, Trinity etc.
But the course. I am quite sure Oxford is better for people in your position. It has 5 course options, whereas Cambridge only really has two- the three year course and the four year course. Yes i know cambridge people will tell me the three year is flexible, but it isnt the same as having 5 differently structured courses.
plus, especially relevant if you are good at classics, oxford's is a more linguistically based and rigorous course. you always do 4 years, you have to do homer and virgil. oh and bear in mind that oxford's selection policy is really how well you do in the various university wide language tests. cambridge is more down to the college.
so weigh up the pros and cons.
i chose oxford because i thought it was a far superior course, but more importantly because i thought cambridge was boring when i visited and oxford a much more inspiring, bustling city. cambridge seemed a nice, but very quiet country town.
so balance up the options
This is almost exactly how I felt, both in terms of the course and the location, though I might be a little kinder and call Cambridge 'charming' or 'quaint' rather than 'boring'.
I seem to recall that, in terms of your course options, Oxford is more accommodating to those who haven't studied either language before, or have only studied to GCSE.Jammy21,
I actually wasn't a member of TSR, didn't even know it existed, until a friend of mine showed me this thread, and I joined specifically to reply to your questions. Without knowing anything about you, except for what I can glean from your other posts on the forum (apologies for the stalking), it seems you're in pretty much the same position I was in five years ago, and perhaps my experiences can shed some light.
For background, I attended a London public school, left in '04 with exactly the same GCSE grades as you and 5 A Levels at Grade A, not including General Studies, including Ancient Greek. Didn't do Latin to A2. Went up to Oxford to do Classics, graduated summer '08, currently have a job in London at a City law firm.
Your comment about being surprised at how difficult it was to get a job flagged my attention. Recession notwithstanding, and the recession will have passed by the time you graduate anyway, it is increasingly becoming true that DOING A CLASSICS DEGREE WILL MAKE YOU PUNCH BELOW YOUR WEIGHT ON THE JOB MARKET. End of story, anything anybody else says is crap.
Of the 16 Classicists who graduated from my college while I was at Oxford (4 in each year over 4 years), I was the only one to leave with any sort of job in hand, and that is not for want of trying on the part of the others. I didn't know all the Classicists in my year across all the colleges, but I knew many, and I can count the number of people who graduated with decent jobs in pocket on both hands. Some wanted to study further, fine, but a disproportionately large number applied for high-flying jobs and didn't get them.
Without wishing to be disparaging, but feeling a duty to tell the truth plainly, if you are going to be happy looking for a rubbish job on Craigslist (or whatever) when you graduate, then do Classics. But if you're bright and ambitious, and think that with an Oxbridge degree you should probably be looking for a high-flying job (City, big-law, government, &c) upon graduating, then you will be making life much harder for yourself by doing a Classics degree. Do PPE, go to the US. Don't do Classics.
If you're interested, I think there are a number of reasons for this. Firstly, at entry level, I think Classics has stopped attracting the bright, motivated and ambitious people it used to, these have all defected to PPE, Law, and other such degrees. Secondly, let's not beat about the bush, Classics is a degree respected only within a small and priviliged circle (it has little cachet to people who aren't white, who aren't English, who didn't go to certain schools). Globalisation has taken hold, and the people who interview you, the people you will have to work with in the future, might well not be part of that circle (look at the big City banks in London - how many of them are foreign owned, and staffed with global people?). This is NOT a globally respected degree - it is a victim of globalisation.
My advice to you: don't lay down in front of the train. If you're bright enough, which you may well be, you'll might do fine (I did). But you might not, and that's not a gamble I could, in good faith, urge you to take.
If you want to go to Oxford, do PPE, it's a much better degree in terms of the material you will study anyway, more interesting, more relevant, more useful to you if you want to go on and do big things later on in life. Oxford is a good place to study Classics, which in itself is a fulfilling and stimulating degree, but there is a significant opportunity-cost, which I think you should only take if you're really interested in the subjects, at the expense of all else. Since you only studied Latin and Greek to GCSE, it seems to me that you might not be.
For the third time: do PPE, or go to the US, where you can study a breadth of subjects with similarly intelligent, motivated, and globally-minded people.
------------
Sidebar: Regardless of what you might read in the criminally-misleading prospectus documents which the Classics Faculty publishes every year, you absolutely won't get into one of the academically-stronger colleges to study Classics without having Latin and Greek to A-Level/IB Level. People do get in to Oxford to study Classics II (without the languages at school), but everybody who I know who studied Classics II was relegated to a fringe college - not the one they applied to - with lower academic standards. Not a huge problem, Oxford is Oxford, and any difference is pretty small, but perhaps a relevant consideration nontheless. (Seriously, somebody should sue the Faculty for the lies they publish in their marketing documents.)
Jammy, I won't be checking this site too often, but do message me if you want to discuss this, or other issues, further. Best of luck to you, and to all, in your applications.
I actually wasn't a member of TSR, didn't even know it existed, until a friend of mine showed me this thread, and I joined specifically to reply to your questions. Without knowing anything about you, except for what I can glean from your other posts on the forum (apologies for the stalking), it seems you're in pretty much the same position I was in five years ago, and perhaps my experiences can shed some light.
For background, I attended a London public school, left in '04 with exactly the same GCSE grades as you and 5 A Levels at Grade A, not including General Studies, including Ancient Greek. Didn't do Latin to A2. Went up to Oxford to do Classics, graduated summer '08, currently have a job in London at a City law firm.
Your comment about being surprised at how difficult it was to get a job flagged my attention. Recession notwithstanding, and the recession will have passed by the time you graduate anyway, it is increasingly becoming true that DOING A CLASSICS DEGREE WILL MAKE YOU PUNCH BELOW YOUR WEIGHT ON THE JOB MARKET. End of story, anything anybody else says is crap.
Of the 16 Classicists who graduated from my college while I was at Oxford (4 in each year over 4 years), I was the only one to leave with any sort of job in hand, and that is not for want of trying on the part of the others. I didn't know all the Classicists in my year across all the colleges, but I knew many, and I can count the number of people who graduated with decent jobs in pocket on both hands. Some wanted to study further, fine, but a disproportionately large number applied for high-flying jobs and didn't get them.
Without wishing to be disparaging, but feeling a duty to tell the truth plainly, if you are going to be happy looking for a rubbish job on Craigslist (or whatever) when you graduate, then do Classics. But if you're bright and ambitious, and think that with an Oxbridge degree you should probably be looking for a high-flying job (City, big-law, government, &c) upon graduating, then you will be making life much harder for yourself by doing a Classics degree. Do PPE, go to the US. Don't do Classics.
If you're interested, I think there are a number of reasons for this. Firstly, at entry level, I think Classics has stopped attracting the bright, motivated and ambitious people it used to, these have all defected to PPE, Law, and other such degrees. Secondly, let's not beat about the bush, Classics is a degree respected only within a small and priviliged circle (it has little cachet to people who aren't white, who aren't English, who didn't go to certain schools). Globalisation has taken hold, and the people who interview you, the people you will have to work with in the future, might well not be part of that circle (look at the big City banks in London - how many of them are foreign owned, and staffed with global people?). This is NOT a globally respected degree - it is a victim of globalisation.
My advice to you: don't lay down in front of the train. If you're bright enough, which you may well be, you'll might do fine (I did). But you might not, and that's not a gamble I could, in good faith, urge you to take.
If you want to go to Oxford, do PPE, it's a much better degree in terms of the material you will study anyway, more interesting, more relevant, more useful to you if you want to go on and do big things later on in life. Oxford is a good place to study Classics, which in itself is a fulfilling and stimulating degree, but there is a significant opportunity-cost, which I think you should only take if you're really interested in the subjects, at the expense of all else. Since you only studied Latin and Greek to GCSE, it seems to me that you might not be.
For the third time: do PPE, or go to the US, where you can study a breadth of subjects with similarly intelligent, motivated, and globally-minded people.
------------
Sidebar: Regardless of what you might read in the criminally-misleading prospectus documents which the Classics Faculty publishes every year, you absolutely won't get into one of the academically-stronger colleges to study Classics without having Latin and Greek to A-Level/IB Level. People do get in to Oxford to study Classics II (without the languages at school), but everybody who I know who studied Classics II was relegated to a fringe college - not the one they applied to - with lower academic standards. Not a huge problem, Oxford is Oxford, and any difference is pretty small, but perhaps a relevant consideration nontheless. (Seriously, somebody should sue the Faculty for the lies they publish in their marketing documents.)
Jammy, I won't be checking this site too often, but do message me if you want to discuss this, or other issues, further. Best of luck to you, and to all, in your applications.
Teebs is going to love the above post.
cpchem
Teebs is going to love the above post.
Ah, but I don't really mean it when I say PPE is the best degree (even though it is).
Kdawg1986
He paid me to write it.
My bribery fund is going on far more important things than paying people to promote PPE on an internet forum. Which City law firm do you work at out of interest (as someone interested in going into it all)? PM me if you don't want to post it in public.
Kdawg1986
Jammy21,
you absolutely won't get into one of the academically-stronger colleges to study Classics without having Latin and Greek to A-Level/IB Level. People do get in to Oxford to study Classics II (without the languages at school), but everybody who I know who studied Classics II was relegated to a fringe college - not the one they applied to - with lower academic standards.
you absolutely won't get into one of the academically-stronger colleges to study Classics without having Latin and Greek to A-Level/IB Level. People do get in to Oxford to study Classics II (without the languages at school), but everybody who I know who studied Classics II was relegated to a fringe college - not the one they applied to - with lower academic standards.
My response is only anecdotal, but my cousin graduated from Oxford with a classics degree approx. 5 years ago and landed management consultancy --> FO hedge fund.
Of course, he got laid off this year but the fact he got the jobs in the first place might count for something!
Of course, he got laid off this year but the fact he got the jobs in the first place might count for something!
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