Classics

When you're picking your subject, it is crucially important to choose one you feel you will enjoy studying, for nothing contributes more to unhappiness than a sense of time and money wasted on the wrong course. Students want to choose subjects that will enhance employment prospects later. It is a concern fuelled by rhetoric about vocational training and by the government's drive to attract more students into science-based subjects. Can you see where we're going with this?

Yes, classics can seem like a determinedly obscure approach - the dry, dusty path that leads on to a career in academia. Yet this is far from the case. The course - loosely defined as the study of ancient civilisations - combines a variety of disciplines, including language (particularly Latin and ancient Greek), literature, philosophy, art, history and archaeology. It's about the inter-linking of all these aspects in a particular historical context, making the connections between them and thereby developing a variety of analytical skills, which are always appreciated by employers. What's more, your study may not be based exclusively in the ancient world - you can also study how the classical world has been represented in later media.

So, in short, a classics degree equips you for far more than simply teaching or academia. Graduates go into law, accountancy, public relations and many other careers not associated with Cicero and his chums. Classics departments offer courses in classical history, classical archaeology and a range of combinations with Greek and Latin, as well as joint courses with languages, philosophy, literature, history... So don't worry if you feel you haven't the (public) school background to make a success of the classics, there's a huge range of options for you.

And if you're trying to be sneaky, and are worried about your grades, it's worth hearing in mind that classics departments tend to make lower offers, due to the falling demand. That could be useful...

In the first year, teaching can often be a little slow for those who studied the subject at school. The need to appeal to what might be termed non-traditional classicists means that some universities (especially the newer ones) offer the course to students who may have little grounding in the subject, so year one can often be somewhat basic. Indeed, there is now less emphasis on the study of languages in university classics departments, because Latin and Greek are not generally offered in state schools. Study is often, therefore, through translations.

Once up and running, teaching tends to he centred on lectures and seminars, and you will most likely be assessed partly by written examination and partly by coursework, oral presentations, dissertations or projects.