Welcome to the CMLL Classics Program!

Whether you have been studying Classics all your life or are coming to it for the first time, and whatever your background, there is a place for you here.

Classics is the original interdisciplinary discipline, and we like to think that it truly has something for everyone. We take Classics to include the ancient Greek and Roman civilizations, the broader ancient Mediterranean world, and the civilizations - from ancient times right through to today - that they touched and engaged with. Classics encompasses everything from ancient languages, to literature, institutions, events, and ideas, to economics, landscapes, and material culture, to the peoples and animals that inhabited these societies, to the reception and appropriation of the ancient world in later periods. In studying Classics (including Classical Archaeology!), you will also be joining a long and time-tested tradition; ever since the first universities were established in the middle ages, Classics has been the basis of the university curriculum. To this day, Classics remains a vibrant and vitally important field, a subject of international relevance for contemporary life, as well as an excellent foundation for many professions. It sheds light on the development of history, art, culture, law, politics, science, engineering, and medicine - to name only a few - and the role that Classical culture and its legacy plays in each of them. It also builds creative, critical, and inquisitive thinkers that stand out from the crowd and play pivotal roles in society. Classics offers us unique opportunities to make meaningful connections between the past and the present, as well as between places, peoples, and cultures. As you can see, studying Classics can take many forms and you will develop real breadth and depth of knowledge and skills in the process.

Some of today's most important and influential people studied Classics. They include seminal authors like C.S. Lewis, Toni Morrison, J.K. Rowling, and J.R.R. Tolkien, as well as other cultural icons, such as actors like Tom Hiddleston and musicians like Chris Martin of Coldplay. Many famous scientists and Nobel Prize winners - from Albert Einstein to Anthony Fauci to Sigmund Freud - studied the Classics, as did important philosophers like Hobbes, Locke, Marx, and Nietzsche, activists like Jane Addams, diplomats and military leaders, like James Baker and Nathaniel Fick, and history-making politicians, including many of this country's founding fathers!

Students of Classics are known for their success - however you define it. Classics majors are consistently among the top scoring students on standardized tests like the LSAT, MCAT, and GRE; they also have relatively high acceptance rates to graduate programs and some of the highest success rates in graduate school. Classics majors and minors are also highly regarded in the business and tech worlds. Students from our program are no exception! Recent students who have graduated with a major, minor, or fulfilled their foreign language requirement with us have gone on to great things. Some have continued their studies at prestigious universities around the world, including medical school, law school, business school, as well as graduate programs in fields ranging from Psychology, to Museum Studies, to Classics. Others have established careers as teachers, publishing editors, scientific researchers, information technology specialists, and more.

In Kiplinger's recent study, Best College Majors for a Lucrative Career 2019, Classics is one of only two Humanities majors to make the top 25. Classics ranked #16 out of “102 popular college majors” overall, beating out many STEM and business oriented majors.

The study of ancient Greek and Roman languages and culture prepares one very well for the job market and a fulfilling career. As Kiplinger notes, “the level of critical thinking and research skills required to do it is highly marketable in a wide range of industries.” Most people who hold a BA in Classics also “report high levels of meaning in their careers.” They feel that the work that they do “makes the world a better place.”

The TTU Classics Program is deeply committed to making the world a better place. The field of Classics has evolved and adapted over the centuries and continues to do so. Once it was only available to the privileged, but Classics is now proactively open to all, striving to break down barriers, and becoming a force for the greater good. Here at TTU, we pride ourselves on making the classical world accessible to everyone.

For more information on these developments in Classics and Classical Archaeology, please see the statements by the Archaeological Institute of America, the Society for Classical Studies (including this), and the Women's Classical Caucus and Social Justice Group.