<p>how is this dept?
anyone?</p>
<p>It's pretty classy.</p>
<p>&& pretty department-ish</p>
<p>
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&& pretty department-ish
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</p>
<p>....u should forgo any humor in ur application essay</p>
<p>the classics department is ok if you don't mind being unemployed when you graduate</p>
<p>Hey guys, be serious
my son is looking through Ivies and really need some advice.
thanks</p>
<p>1) i was dead serious</p>
<p>2) i dont know anything about the classics department except for that it seems those who major in it usually do pretty poorly when looking for jobs because they tend to have very few marketable skills outside of academia (pretty much going to grad school and then teaching either classics or writing).</p>
<p>thanks for your response shraf. But what I really wanted to know is about the classical dept at columbia. like, is it well funded, does it have low concentration,are there any well known classical prof. there etc....</p>
<p>J mom -- I believe the classics department has been well regarded, though I have a vague recollection that a major prof may have been wooed away by NYU last year. Personally, I think classics would be a great major, and that someone majoring in classics at Columbia would probably get a lot of small classes and the potential for personal attention. (Your son might look at the directory of classes online to see the actual enrollments.)</p>
<p>One question I would have, however, is whether someone who intends to major in classics would want to take the core curriculum, which contains a fair amount of classic books, but is not necessarily taught by experts in the classics. I'd suggest your son consider that seriously, and look at the specifics of the core curriculum, which are detailed on the Columbia website.</p>
<p>"....u should forgo any humor in ur application essay"</p>
<p>lol</p>
<p>J mom, if your son is interested in classics you might want to look into Oxford and Cambridge in the UK as well?</p>
<p>thanks sac and ace. My son wants to go to the states and study</p>
<p>"....u should forgo any humor in ur application essay"</p>
<p>Shraf, thank you for taking everything serious and using college applications to back up your seriousness</p>
<p>
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Shraf, thank you for taking everything serious and using college applications to back up your seriousness
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</p>
<p>as usual, no idea what you're saying but i'm not taking anything too seriously...i thought karot's joke was hilarious but yours sucked....that's all....i could've said straight out that your joke sucked but i wanted to be witty....you know what wit is right?</p>
<p>Jmom -- Your son might also look at Harvard, Yale, and University of Chicago. Those are the universities, along with Columbia, that a classics major I know of considered. Also, I believe (could be wrong) that NYU recently received a large donation to fund some aspects of the classics. Though NYU is not regarded overall on the same par with the other universities I mentioned, or Columbia, it has some real centers of excellence and could be worth looking into IF your son is sure of his focus. (In the states, students tend not to be as concentrated entering university, the way they are elsewhere. But you probably know that.)</p>
<p>The Classics major at Columbia is just as good as most top schools. In order to make a life out of classics, you really need a top name school on your diploma so Columbia would be a great choice. In addition to the other schools sac suggested you should look into Brown, the Catholic University of America, Berkeley, Ann Arbor, and UVA. They all have great programs too. The one nice thing, imo, about Brown vs the others though is that Brown has an Egyptology department. So if your son wants some experience outside of the normal greek/roman specialty, he can certainly get it. Plus, they have no core curriculum (could be a good or bad thing depending on how you look at it).</p>
<p>
That program (the Institute for the Study of the Ancient World) is only for graduate students. Furthermore, it's funded by Shelby White, so I would stay WELL away from it until we can get a sense of what the aims of the department are.</p>
<p>Columbia has a perfectly respectable Classics department. In response to karen61990's comment, Columbia has quite a famous professor in the Middle Eastern Studies department (Marc Van De Mieroop). In fact, he's on leave this year teaching at Oxford. He specializes in ancient Near Eastern studies, and not every school offers Sumerian and Akkadian! Furthermore, Columbia offers one of the very few digs in Egypt open to undergrads (Michigan, Yale, and Hopkins have the others). </p>
<p><a href="http://www.mcah.columbia.edu/amheida/%5B/url%5D">http://www.mcah.columbia.edu/amheida/</a></p>
<p>Of course, the proximity to resources like the Met are also great for a prospective Classics major.</p>
<p>Really, any of the Ivies would do for a prospective Classics major. Your son may want to examine the programs more closely to find out which best fit his interests. If he's really interested in the Minoans and Mycenaeans, for example, Dartmouth has a well-known professor (Jeremy Rutter) who specializes in the Bronze Age. Similarly, Penn has excavated in the Mediterranean for over a century and has unparalleled resources in terms of artifacts and documents. Harvard offers a thriving Medieval Studies department, something to consider if he's interested in late antiquity. (n.b. At the undergraduate level, the best thing to consider is fit. A student that thrives in the big city environment of Columbia probably wouldn't be happy at Cornell.)</p>
<p>Here's a list of Classics departments:
<a href="http://www.tlg.uci.edu/index/departments.html%5B/url%5D">http://www.tlg.uci.edu/index/departments.html</a></p>
<p>I'd advise your son to check out some of the programs at less-known schools. Franklin & Marshall has quite a good program, for example, as does Haverford (in conjunction with Bryn Mawr). Beloit is one of the few LACs to offer Egyptology in the Classics department.</p>
<p>Thanks for the correction, and to those posters who have real knowledge of the field. I hope J mom comes back to read this excellent information.</p>
<p>thanks warblesrule, sac and Karen for your information and I definitely agree with you Karen when you said "In order to make a life out of classics, you really need a top name school on your diploma "
thanks again</p>