(no subject)

[bedlamsbard]

You know, I really do think that Tulane's website is the most functional university website I've ever run across. I shall be sad when it is no longer my university's homepage, because most other uni websites make me shudder in horror.

Also, I kind of appreciate these What Can You Do With A Degree In..." fliers, because it's not just all the useful majors, but everything that Tulane offers. With a degree in classics, you can be a CIA analyst! A minister! An archaeologist! A speechwriter! Fictional!

They're a little more confused by MEMS, but they still manfully tell you that you can be an archaeologist, an archivist, an author, several other things, a specialist (that's...nice?), or a tour guide. Or a lawyer. You can always be a lawyer.

On a related note, there is a Roman historian at Cambridge that I have been told to contact, since he's the one my connections in the Archaeology Department know, but I've decided that there's a slight possibility I should probably read his research before I e-mail him and say, "Hi! I want to come study with you!" YES I PROBABLY SHOULD HAVE BOUGHT HIS BOOKS IN CAMBRIDGE I KNOW. Maybe my poor going-out-of-business Borders (RIP) will have them. Or I can wait till I go back to Tulane. ohgodiwillnevergetintograduateschool

It has also struck me that as I am crazily trying to get into Cambridge for grad, perhaps I should also look at Oxford. Yes. It took me this long to realize that, uh, Oxford also exists as an option. Look, I was in Cambridge for a month, okay? Where they like to tell stories about how Oxford does things WRONG and it is full of dirty cheating liars who trick poor innocent Corpus Christi Cambridge out of its colors because Cambridge has honor and integrity. (I have no idea if this is actually true, but that's what they say at Cambridge!)

Comments

[cofax7]

If you want the dirt on the Oxford classics dept, let me know: I am good friends with a fan who teaches there. (And I suspect she can advise you on Cambridge as well.)

[aella_irene]

Woo Oxford!

(What can I say? My mother's cousin was Warden of Keble, and I spent several years desperately wanting to do Classics at Oxford before being prodded towards Cambridge by my Classical Civ teacher.)

[bedlamsbard]

Oooh, yes, certainly, if it's not too much trouble. The inner workings of university departments are always a good thing to know.

[bedlamsbard]

Oxford is just as distinguished as Cambridge! Despite what Cambridge says!

...I can't believe it took me this long to figure out that Oxford is actually an option, despite the fact that I KNOW AN AMERICAN STUDENT DOING HER MPHIL AT OXFORD. *facepalm*

[starlady]

The more fundamental question is which scholarly approach to the material you agree with, as the two schools take diametrically different views on how to do classical scholarship.

[bedlamsbard]

Huh. That shall be something I will definitely have to look into, as I did not know that.

[starlady]

I didn't know either, until I took a class with a professor who's firmly in the Cambridge camp (he trained with people who went there). Iirc and simplifying greatly, the Cambridge approach is to construct models from the evidence, while the Oxford approach prioritizes constructing models and then seeing whether evidence can be found to fit them. They're both a valid response to the paucity of evidence remaining from the ancient world, but I have to admit that I prefer the Cambridge approach personally.

[bedlamsbard]

*head to side* Huh. That's interesting.