“Are you rich?” This was the response I received upon telling someone in Freshers’ Week that I was studying Classics. Was I surprised? Far from it. More than any other degree, I argue, the common perception of a classics student places them as a public school alumnus, with A-Level certificates reading Latin, Ancient Greek, and Classical Civilisations.
While I would love to champion the diversity of socioeconomic backgrounds within my degree, the numbers speak for themselves. From 2021 to 2023, Classics admitted the lowest percentage of state-educated students and was the only course (other than Asian and Middle Eastern Studies) to give offers to more privately-educated than state-educated pupils.
I find myself between two camps; whether Oxford encourages or discourages this trend, or whether the University has any influence at all in this bias.
At Oxford, Literae Humaniores (or Classics for the uninitiated) functions like no other Classics or Oxford degree. However, at the time of writing, the first half of the course is undergoing an immense overhaul. A consensus is yet to be reached on whether the lack of Prelims is a blessing, or whether their replacement, Mods (in Hilary of second year), are a curse. Mods consist of seven to ten three-hour exams within ten days, covering different genres of prose and poetry as well as options in archaeology, history, and linguistics. Regardless, Oxford Classicists are placed in two broad groups, Course I and Course II, with the former indicating that an ancient language was taken at A-Level, and the latter meaning that one was not. My Bod card reads “Course II”: I myself am state educated without Latin or Greek qualifications, meaning that I am a veteran of the daily 9am Latin classes in Basement Room 43. With classical subjects being taught in 75 percent of private schools and only 25 percent of state schools, the number of state-educated pupils who even know what Classics is, let alone those who want to study it, is remarkably low. Even further, when we’re not split from the other side of the cohort, we’re faced with untranslated passages we haven’t had the prior education to understand, classical references that we are assumed to know, and constant comparisons with people whose parents could afford to avoid all of these problems.
Is there hope for the future? For the cohort of classicists beginning their degree in 2025, the Classics Faculty have changed the names of the two categories to ‘Dual/Single Language Stream’, perhaps to neutralise the language through which we are so distinctly divided. Moreover, the selection of set texts has been updated and made available to all candidates, rather than keeping the Iliad/Aeneid (or Greek/Latin) divide that left me and the Beginner’s Greek student at my college with few opportunities to properly talk.
While admirable, these changes are yet to be fully implemented, and it remains to be seen whether they will affect the admissions statistics or foster a more welcoming environment.
By no means do I hate my degree – I love my tutors, Latin is on the whole very rewarding, and I would not be studying Classics if I did not genuinely adore the ancient world. Yet, given my background, I know that I am in an extremely privileged and unique position to be studying this subject at Oxford. This does not change the fact that Classics is stuck in an age long gone, from the archaic structure of having our big exams in second year to the narrow geographical and temporal scope of Greats (Finals) options. Let’s not even mention the fact that the course is formally titled Literae Humaniores. While the issues within the field of Classics today are by no means unique to Oxford, this University stands out as having the largest Classics faculty in the world and a reputation that precedes it. Perhaps, one day, people like me will feel truly welcome in this traditionally elitist environment, and not like we do not belong here. Will the Mods reforms be enough to diversify the Ioannou Centre?
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