Hello,
I just signed up, in order to ask a question I’ve been pondering for a while. I’ve always had a love of mythology and history, and it is in my teens that I’ve discovered my own great interest in the Greco-Roman Classics. I’ve read Thucydides to Plautus on subjects from philosophy to nature. However, after devoting much of my focus to these for quite a while, I began feeling burned out and that is when I discovered an additional interest in the Chinese classics and history. They’ve both helped me through tough times and I find that a variety helps to keep things interesting. Now my SATs are coming up and I’ve started planning what I would like to do in college. These two subjects, being my main areas of interest, were obviously on my mind. I’ve been feeling pressured to choose between them, in which case I would reluctantly go with the former. A full study of both would require me to learn Latin, Greek and Classical Chinese, which includes learning the Greek alphabet and memorizing innumerable Chinese characters. I was wondering if those with experience studying either field would think it feasible to study both, and in addition if such a study would prevent in-depth exploration of both. Being a humanities-minded person, I am well aware that many see such majors as useless, so none of those comments please. Thank you to those who answer for helping me decide!
Your interests sound very much like my daughter’s. She is a HS junior in her third year of Latin, first year of (modern) Chinese, and fourth year of French. She also has a strong interest in history. If you are inclined towards language study, I wouldn’t worry too much about learning the Greek alphabet because there are a limited number of letters, but the Chinese characters can be daunting - there are so many! Chinese pronunciation can also be very difficult for English speakers. And Latin grammar is a doozy.
However, if you are interested in these topics you should certainly pursue those interests. You have plenty of time to settle on a major, so I would keep an open mind. Majoring in both would be a challenge, I would think, because of the need to develop a working knowledge of three difficult languages and the heavy reading load. Good luck!