Hello and welcome to Regional Classics, a podcast from the University of Oxford,
which reflects and celebrates the diverse voices of Oxford classicists past and present from different parts of the UK.
All the while creating thought provoking conversations, breaking down barriers and showing that if you want to study the ancient world,
any aspect politics, history, art, science, literature, culture and much more than you can observe.
Classicists do not and need not come from only a narrow cross-section of society.
This episode features three Oxford classicists from across the north of England.
Joining me today to talk about their own pathways into classics,
their relationship with the ancient world and what we can all do to support and grow classics
In the north are Christina Chui, a third year undergraduate classic student at Merton College.
Originally from Newcastle upon Tyne; Amy Thompson, a former classics student at St Anne's College,
is currently a philosophy postgraduate, originally from Oldham near Manchester.
And Professor Llewelyn Morgan from St Helens in Merseyside,
an alumnus of Corpus Christi College and currently a fellow in classics at Brasenose College, he's also the faculty's school's liaison officer.
The north of England has huge cultural, regional and economic diversity,
and the four of us, I'm from the West Coast of Lancashire originally cover ourselves a huge range of that region.
But I think we're all united by a fascination in the ancient world.
So, Cristina, where did that fascination with the world come from?
So for me, I remember the first time was actually in year 4 when we had a Greece day.
And then the most vivid memory I have is the Olympic Games that we held in the afternoon when I was completely rubbish and lost everything.
But it was a good experience because I can remember it so vividly but formally,
I guess it would be in secondary school when I had the opportunity to study
Latin first in year seven and year 8 and then study classical Greek in year nine.
But then even then, I wasn't particularly thinking about studying classics at university.
And actually the other thing, apart from the formal side of it, was Percy Jackson, which was my favourite.
And that was probably the other kind of the most fun aspect of getting to know classics through fiction.
So you kind of not schoolteaching this through enjoying some reading,
but I would highly recommend it to everybody as a way into the classics, definitely.
But for me, started with Olympic Games in year 4. How about you, Amy?
Yeah. So I'm very lucky in that I remember some family holidays which we usually to either Greece or Italy.
So to put it one way, my parents should have known, that this is what I'd end up doing.
But I kind of remember looking up at huge buildings around, particularly the Colosseum in Rome and kind of thinking,
how did that get there, who you know, what kind of world do we live in that these things last that long?
Obviously, at the time, I had no idea that that was a thing you could study at university.
I had no idea that was literature or languages that went along with it.
I was just kind of astounded by the scale of these buildings in cities that we would walk around.
And I was quite young. But then similar to Cristina,
it was when I went to secondary school and could study Latin for only kind of half an hour a week at a school that not many children did Latin there.
But it turned out that I kind of liked it and was maybe about to be good at it if I worked really hard.
And that's how I kind of got into the academic side of things then. And Llewelyn?
Yeah, I mean, actually, quite, quite got a similar story to Amy, actually, that sort of domestically in the family,
I have this quite eccentric dad who insisted on an epic caravan holidays, which often ended up in quite classical places.
And at the time, I had no idea that being in southern Turkey looking at amazing stuff would turn me into a classicist much more formally.
It's the old story, actually, of a really inspirational teacher at a school in Liverpool.
He'd been at lots of schools in Liverpool and been sort of, as it were, tracking across Liverpool as the classics departments kind of shut down.
And and I was lucky enough to to encounter him.
And he introduced me to classics in depth, also introduced me to the concept of Oxford, which haven't been really on my mind at all.
So important then to have these different influences,
whether it be through popular culture or through your families or the trips that you're able to go on,
but also through your schools and your teachers. I'm interested.
When you first became aware of the ancient world,
were you also aware of how the subject itself was perceived amongst whether it be your family or within your school or your peers?
And I know Amy you said that there weren't many people that did do Latin.
Did it feel like an outsider subject and was that a particular draw into doing something that was a little bit different?
Yeah, I think it was definitely an outsider subject. It was the kind of thing that I don't know the other.
So it was compulsory for us in year 7. I've went to a girls school and the other girls kind of a lot.
And again, why is every week it's always, 'a, um', I don't understand these things don't really get what's going on.
It's not that interesting. It's all about the old world.
And I kind of desperately want to be cool enough that I thought that as well, but I just couldn't think that.
And obviously, now I know that that was the that's not the cool.
And the cool version is the doors, that classics opens for you and the things you can learn there.
But definitely for me, there was an attraction of doing something that, you know,
was was different, but also doing something that was such a big challenge.
And I kind of liked the idea that these people are struggling with it.
Well, that I'm going to be really good at it. If I say it's too hard, I'm going to prove that it's not too hard.
There's there's nothing that's too hard to learn.
And I think it was kind of the determination to be good at something difficult as much as anything else.
But then definitely that perception of this is a hard thing. And if you can do it kind of well done because you've worked hard to be able to do it.
That was a big part of the perception of classics for me. Well, for me in secondary school in year 7 and 8 everybody had to do Latin,
so I think within the school it was everybody had different perceptions of classics because we had to do it.
And some people really enjoyed that. We had to do. Some people, like Amy says, it's like a certain kind of view of classics that we have to do this.
So it's, again, another thing. So I think actually the aspect of being able to choose it in year 9 and whether we did go on it,
I think always having a choice to do something and you actually choosing to do it gives you a
particular perception that actually this is something that I enjoy and want to learn more about.
So for me, that was one thing that from the year 7/8, I kind of had the same opinion as everybody else.
What is this? I don't really understand all of these grammatical structures.
So you kind of get past that and actually being able to choose, especially bringing in Greek as well.
That gave me a different perception of classics because so far my only exposure was literally through the Latin lessons that we had.
So that gave me a different perspective. But also I think wider is that I realise how my school was such an amazing school,
gave me so many opportunities, but that was because it was an amazing school that taught classics in that way.
But actually outside of that, because I'm not from an affluent background and so nobody in my family knows what classics is or for me personally as a Chinese person
Not many people in my community know what is. So actually the perception, what is classics is definitely part of my experience.
If we say classics,
I think one thing is that people think of classical music or think of things that they associate with classics and not the subject.
But actually if you say, oh, well, do you know about you know about Greek myth, about things that are familiar to everybody,
then that kind of brings in a different perception that, oh, I didn't know classics was that.
So then I think from my experience that 1 - being in school is something different.
But also for me personally, with people not knowing what it is and telling them what it is that that brings to light a lot of different perspectives.
So that was definitely really interesting.
It is really interesting and I wonder what can be done to try and prevent those problems almost with the perception of what Classics is and
the difficulties around the name and the brand and what people already maybe have preconceptions about and aren't sure about - Llewelyn
Do you have anything to say on that? Yes and no, not really.
Because, I mean,
I can look back and I can I can see now that there was there was lots of kind of presence of classics in a strange way in my in my family,
even though neither of my parents had studied it.
But I remember being terribly excited is a terrible confession that is being terribly excited.
When I was about 17 because I was lent a book by this great teacher of mine, which is David David West a little book on Horace.
And I sort of convinced myself that I could you know,
I could I could read and understand Horace, which is, you know, what kind of kid was a 17 year.
So much better things I could have been doing. But actually, in a in a strange way, I'm still doing that kind of thing, you know?
So even though I didn't know then that that was what, you know, being an undergraduate to some degree, and being a professional.
was like but I did get some kind of presentiment of what it was, what it was like, you know,
through books, through teachers and through that kind of more subtle stuff that happens in families with me.
I mean, for perhaps those prospective students and people who might have that interest in the ancient world,
but it isn't something that they've encountered with their family or maybe have felt
able to to express or kind of really get across what it is that they're interested in.
Is there any advice that any of you would would give to somebody who's trying to find their
way in classics but isn't quite sure either what it is or how they can go about accessing it,
especially if they've not necessarily had that chance to study the languages at their school from from me,
read stuff, go to exhibitions, go to museums.
The wonderful thing about classics is that it is it is so massive.
There's so much stuff I focus on in my research that makes it fantastically narrow, which is Roman poetry really.
But there's so much more. There's all the Greek stuff, there's archaeology, there's philosophy.
There's there's there's all kinds of things. So there's no one way into the subject.
There are a thousand ways into the subject which which you can pursue by being,
you know, enthused by a Mary Beard TV programme or an event at the local museum or.
Yes, a book in the school library, a Book of Myths in the in the school library, something written by Natalie Haynes or something like that.
You know, I think the most important thing to say is that there's no sort of route 1 into into classics.
We're all kind of drawn into it in accidental ways, finding this kind of intrinsic interest in the subject.
I think if I can add to that as well. So I only studied Latin at school, so I was very language focused.
The only literature I'd read was that that was set on the syllabus.
So the standard beginning of book 4 listening to the Dido episode of The Aeneid, all those kinds of things which I do still love, of course,
but that was on a very narrow route in and I was kind of looking at university applications thinking this subject seems absolutely massive.
How on earth am I going to go from knowing these three hundred lines of the Aeneid, knowing about the classical world, whatever.
And wherever you set the limits of that, it seems like a kind of boundless thing that you could just pursue forever,
which I guess in some ways is and as Llewelyn was saying? Now that's brilliant because it gives us all of these different roads in.
And I think the flipside of that is, but you only need one. So although there are thousands of routes in for a thousand different people,
each person doesn't you don't have to think of it as tackling this whole beast.
And I think if we I definitely set it up in my head as I have to know the classical world inside out and backwards.
And that is a ludicrous idea to think that one person could know that amount of information,
to think that one faculty could know that amount of information.
And so I think and also the flipside of what Llewelyn was saying is that pick your own route, follow the path, just ask the questions.
And once you've got the one in, that's all you need and keep on going. And that's the brilliance of the subject.
But I completely empathise with people who think that makes it overwhelming or somehow inaccessible.
It doesn't have to be like that. I think I would say that, as actually both speakers are saying, that Classics seems so huge.
But that's what's so great about it, that we are all still learning about it.
And every day we find something new that, oh, I didn't know this was interconnected.
So I think it's just important to start somewhere, anywhere you like, whether it could be a book.
I mean, just go on YouTube and type in myth There's TED talks, short myths, you can look at documentaries if you want to,
or you can read a magazine if there's an article that you found or anything,
talk to somebody like ask them whether they know about anything because more likely somebody else has heard of them or something.
You can add to that knowledge that museums as libraries as those are free resources.
I think that's the important thing to point out that is accessible literally in front of you as an Greek art
And as soon as I notice one column, I started seeing columns like everywhere in the Street.
So then I think starting somewhere, speaking to people,
looking for three things to three things everywhere, and then starts that it could be a museum.
Just ask somebody to go with you to see if there's a, you know, a greek vase anywhere, something, and then starting there.
There's normally links. And there's also if it's a museum, there are staff there who are very knowledgeable and if there are any activities.
So it doesn't have to be that you start reading a classical text straightaway, it could be something very easy,
just a short video and then learning about that, being interested them and just keep going is the interest.
That's a great point. And across the north,
there are so many towns and cities that have been influenced so much by classical architecture and history that people don't necessarily know about.
And I think more work is being done to highlight those places. So so do try and find the local the local gems just as much.
We mentioned there about the breadth of classics, but how interdisciplinary it is.
So you don't just do a language or literature, you will also combine historical and archaeological skills.
I know, Amy, you're now doing philosophy.
So can you tell us a bit about how you got into that and how that's formed such a part of your kind of classics experience?
Yeah, of course. So Classics the Mods programme for the first two years of Classics at Oxford.
I found that when I arrived required you to do some philosophy. Like I kind of thought, oh no, this is so going to end badly.
So I studied Plato to begin with as part of the Mods course, which was seems to be the paper that everyone did, it felt safest.
It felt like there'd be people to hold your hand and help along the way.
Had a brilliant tutor who taught me for the first part of a Mods course on Plato.
And after that I kind of said, well, for finals I'll do the Republic because I love the Plato texts
I'll keep going. I got into the republic. Turns out that Republic is about all the philosophy that every topic in that I could possibly have imagined.
And so I picked out some ideas and kind of went to my personal tutor and said, well, I like these books.
I like the middle books when they're talking about the metaphysics and what the things in a world actually are.
What what could I do with that?
And my tutor was Roger Crisp and he kind of said everything I think you can do, you can learn about everything by going that way in.
And so then picked up the knowledge and reality paper, the ethics paper, the philosophy of mind paper, the logic and language paper.
And one of my history tutors kind of joked that it was as though I was on a
mission to find the hardest philosophy paper that existed to try and conquer it.
And that, I guess, goes back to being determined to learn to do Latin because people told me it was hard.
And I guess that also applies to the philosophy that I picked up as well.
But definitely I would not have come to philosophy in as much depth and detail if it hadn't been a mandatory part of the mods programme.
And so, needless to say, I'm very, very glad that it was.
But I guess it's kind of easy to think of philosophy as an extra and kind of somewhere outside classics,
especially because I don't know some some scholars of Plato don't read Greek anymore now that it's not kind of part of all of our secondary curricula.
And so it almost feels like it's a separate discipline in itself.
But what I think is super interesting is that for every modern idea that you come across in philosophy,
as I have, I'm yet to find a counterexample to this. But it seems that there's always a kind of ancient version of it.
This debate has always come up, whether it's in explicitly philosophical texts or perhaps even even in literature.
This kind of conundrum that philosophy is grappling with always has a kind of ancient forebear of it.
And so I guess that's one one way that the two have kind of come together for me, even though I now I don't work on ancient authors.
Now I work on political philosophy and ethics.
But even there, there still seems to be this kind of genesis between the classical disciplines and the philosophy that I've more recently done.
And I know Llewelyn in your interests research has obviously been in Roman poetry,
but you've since expanded that reach, particularly looking at the Near East.
And again, how is the breadth of classics there that reflected in your research?
In lots of ways I mean.
If I could go back to being an undergraduate, I had a similar experience with with philosophy, which is similar but different,
because big difference between me and Amy is that I wasn't very good at philosophy, but I chose to do as much philosophy as anything else.
And it was without question, the most interesting and and.
Sort of shaping kind of education I ever had, and it was just, you know, such a good example of where classics can take you, actually.
And I you know, I still live by some of the things that I learnt at that point thirty years later.
But, yeah, no sort of more recent research. I mean, not so my my my expertise, such as it is, is in sort of reading literature.
But I, I spend a lot of time with archaeologists and sort of collaborating with archaeologists
in various places and for example collaborating with archaeologists in Pakistan.
And those are that still counts as classics.
It's a kind of a version of classics, which is partly the reception of classics is a historical thing about the 19th century
and what people in that part of the world were thinking about where they were.
But it's also sort of deep historical thing about Greek history in that part of the world and in history thereafter.
So, yes, absolutely. It takes you into into interesting spaces.
If you if you if you hang around long enough and even if you don't change it because as an undergraduate, at Oxford in particular, but, you know,
anywhere that you can study the subject, you can go into history, you can go to art history,
you can get into linguistics, you can go into philosophy, you can go into into literature.
It is an inherently diverse subject.
And I know Cristina, you're now in the second part of your degree where you get to pick from a really wide variety of papers.
What are some of the ones that you've chosen and enjoying so far? Oh, well, just to go back to philosophy, because as Amy,
I did pick the Plato paper and actually philosophy is probably the if I have to say what I'm the proudest of doing so far,
that it's actually the philosophy paper because I find it really hard.
If you ask the people I was talking to at the start to doing the things that you'll know.
how hard I found the module
but I think that actually there's something about taking on something that you found so difficult and not understanding anything,
especially the language. I think when you approach anything for the first time,
it seems impossible because there are so many new things coming at you at the same time
but actually once you start to get into a bit more and you find something that interests you,
whether it's a certain argument in philosophy or something,
that it's just an interesting question that you've not thought about before, then actually it seems much more doable.
And then after doing the paper,
then I went on to pick the Republic also so we can tell how far I've come from impossibility at the start of Mods to do one at Greats.
And I think what's interesting about philosophy is that it doesn't have to be kind of
put into a box because it's so relevant to everything is so relevant to modern ideas.
It's relevant to big questions that everybody will not everybody might ask.
But some people might ask some day, you know, the big questions. And it doesn't have to be that you have to be a classicist to know about these things.
It's something that I think is able and accessible to everybody, but also in terms of classics being related to other things.
I think skills wise that that's something that might not necessarily seem initially apparent, that it connects to lots of different things.
But I mean, I'm doing as part of a different thing.
I'm doing something on digital data,
which seems completely unrelated to classics but the way that I've been trained to think by doing classics and looking at something and being like,
oh, this is very difficult. But actually, what do these things mean?
How do I break it down is something that I think my course and the discipline has trained me to do that.
It's something so unrelated with data that actually we find the ways that we think in classics,
in the way that we think about other ideas, it's connected. And I guess that brings in philosophy as well,
that actually all of these things are thinking about why things that they are the way they are and what's interesting about them.
And so I think in that way connects to lots of different disciplines and those of different areas of our lives.
I think similarly to what Cristina was saying there, I'm coming to the end of my degree, I've obviously spent a lot of time looking at job adverts.
So I got very used to the language that gets used to them. And it seems that there's the kind of codified thing whereby all of the adverts will say,
we want you to have an economics or business degree or a science degree or another analytical degree,
e.g. chemistry, physics, biology, and they list off this whole ream of science degrees that are what the employers
think of as Analytic degrees or where you've kind of garnered analytical skills.
And I think the burden is really on people like me and Cristina in a few years time to
to go out and show that we have analytical skills too and although we're not on the list,
that I'm not suggesting they're going to start putting classics on the list of degrees.
They are necessarily looking for, but I think there's a huge weight on us right now to go out and show that these skills that we've
learnt are applicable in the workplace and we're just as analytical as our scientific counterparts.
But I do think that that's something that would encourage a lot more people into classics,
especially from from the north, where maybe the line of, you know,
you need to have this kind of scientific background to go and have a really successful job or job security and,
you know, to get the things that are going to pave your path towards the life that you want to build for yourself.
And that was certainly a line that was pushed on me when I was looking at which which degrees to go on to do.
I had A levels and maths and science as well. And so I feel very strongly that we do have these skills.
Classics has given us these skills and it's kind of on us now to go and show,
to keep showing the world that these skills come from classics as much as from other degrees.
Can I can I support that view of things I really think are absolutely correct.
And it's not just there is stuff like philosophy in there.
Is that to be a classicist, you're you're studying, you know,
on the one hand a piece of literature and then the same week you're writing a philosophy essay.
So it's a kind of a flexibility of of mental approach and also of expression,
because a philosophy essay or a philosophy article that you're reading is very
different from a from a literature or historical thing that you're reading.
And just to give you some confidence,
it is still something that I hear regularly from friends of mine who are in different areas of business and and the professions.
They might express it with surprise, but they express it and they say, for example, one friend, the best lawyers I see are always ex-classicists.
I mean, this guy had no reason to say things that I wanted to hear, though.
I was delighted to hear that. Now, you could analyse that.
But it's all about the things that Amy's been been talking about, those strengths of of analysis and argumentation, certainly.
And it has been shown also with, I think,
more universities across the country being ever more aware that having had some sort of classical background so if,
for example, you may not have been able to study classical languages,
but you've been able to do a bit of classical civilisation or ancient history at school,
if that is a possibility that those are really respected and valued subjects for going on to university, because not only, as you said,
of the analytic skills and the communicative skills that you said,
but also because of the breadth of the approaches and the subject that you're studying.
Just going back a little bit to when, you know,
you were all studying at school and thinking about your university choices, to what extent did your educational, family,
economic, geographical location influence and affect your your applications and your kind of your choices at university in particular?
Shall I start at the beginning, a long time ago? I've been thinking about this because it got a lot and it's it's kind of strange.
But, I mean, my my family history in this respect is quite complicated, that my dad actually went to Cambridge, but he went to college in 1938.
Right. And then he joined up in 1939 and he never went back to Cambridge and he never went back to Cambridge.
This is not a hit at Cambridge. You could say this of Oxford as well went back to Cambridge.
I mean, he finished his degree somewhere else but never went back to Cambridge because he it's just like I'm just full of,
as he put it, very, very, very, very posh people. Right. And he was a grammar school boy from with a Welsh kind of background.
Now, this is relevant because living in Liverpool, living outside Liverpool, but also living with very middle class,
very strong in cultural capital kind of family, there was also because, you know, the class system in this country is so subtle.
There was also this sense that Oxford wasn't Oxbridge was not the place for people like us,
not not a heavy sense, but it just didn't didn't kind of feature on on the scheme of things.
And my sense is, looking back and I have to guess at this, that it was only a very few places in Liverpool back then.
The Bluecoats maybe in addition to my my school, but still not very many,
which were encouraging their strong students to to apply to to Oxbridge or indeed to apply,
you know, sort of get across the country to, you know, universities as well.
So, you know, again, I trace it to that teacher, actually.
Yeah. I would also trace it to a particular pair of teachers that I had in sixth form
But I think that now that the dynamics around applying to university and deciding where to go or what to do all those kind of
things I do think they impact people differently in ways that we're kind of only just starting to uncover.
So to give you the background on my side of things now, neither of my parents have A-levels, nevermind undergraduate degrees.
And so for me, I went to a grammar school and there was always a sense that I would probably go on to university,
but I was probably rather than it being a given that that's what would happen.
And the sense in which I would go to university was because, well, that's what you need to do to get the best job.
And so if you're kind of funnelling your life towards I need to go to university to get a degree that's employable,
to get a good job, that doesn't necessarily in the kind of cultural imaginary of of where I'm from, lead to doing a Classics degree.
In fact, it led me while I was actually at sixth form to apply to a physics degree. And it was only after kind of submitting that thinking,
I've made a terrible decision here and I don't think that's what I'm going to spend the next four years doing it was only
after submitting it that I actually said I'm going to have to take a year and I so the classics was my kind of second shot at university.
Exactly. Because of these cultural factors that that play in.
There's a sense in which you're funnelling your life towards a particular degree in order to get the job.
And when university is kind of functional like that.
That definitely, I think plays into to the dynamics of more people's decisions than we maybe anticipate. For my application, I think.
Well, firstly, I have to trace all completely back to my mum,
who actually gave me the amazing opportunity to go into the school that provided me with the opportunity to study classics.
If not, I don't think I would ever have known about classics or even considered going, because that was probably the only opportunity,
because of the opportunities that the school gave in terms of the resources that they could provide.
So without that, I would not have been able to even consider applying, I think, because I was determined to study.
And so likewise with my sister who decided to study medicine,
is that we have been so supported that nothing would ever stop us from doing what we want to do.
I think if we want to do that, we will find some way to do that.
So I think, again, that comes from my mum with the support that she gave.
So with the application, if I was going to study Classics, I'm going to go for it and actually thinking about it now.
I'm looking back once I'm studying classics, as I can see all the different factors that were at play,
but that I kind of just like made a beeline towards studying, which is really interesting.
I think especially now with the discipline is that we see we now look at it all the different things that have been influencing.
I'm not sure if that's the same for everybody, but I've definitely noticed, looking back,
all of the things that have been at play that maybe I didn't notice before, which is really good that we're actually doing that now.
But in terms of my social background is that nobody, I think, on my street knows about classics or,
you know, and as I said earlier, as a Chinese person, again, not many people know what it is.
But I think what's interesting is that because I'm doing it, I'm hoping to show people that you can do it because I am doing it and that actually
we shouldn't be thinking about all of these different issues that might be barriers.
Think about what your goal is and then get to that goal and then all the barriers.
You just kind of bash through them and get through them as you go, because at the end of the day,
what we're all doing is that we're doing something that we enjoy and that we want to learn about.
And that actually I think thinking about that has already given me a path to studying, to applying for it.
But one other note to add is actually I didn't decide to do Classics until
pretty much the last minute because I was deciding between law and Classics
And I think the deciding factor was that I found out that it's actually very
difficult to find any discipline that will directly drive you towards a job,
which I think is one of the key issues. when we're thinking about applying for anything is what can this give me in terms of my future life?
And that actually, even in things like engineering, it's not a straight line towards a discipline, towards a job,
but it's actually what the what the degree gives you is an opportunity to find out about the degree.
And then from that, you can always find different ways into different workplaces.
And I think, as you talked about earlier, with the skills that you get actually in any degree, you then take that to the job.
So particularly for me, the application part,
I was very lucky in being able to be determined and go for it and have the support and opportunity that I needed.
But actually, on reflection, that, you know, I think that's been the most important fact.
And regardless of what other people thought or what other barriers there were, is the way to think about what you want to do and then go for that.
Fantastic. I'm interested in how all these different impacts and experiences that you've said formulated that decision to do classics
how did then was still apply when you went on to do classics when you were at Oxford and some are still in Oxford.
How your your background and your experience has has impacted that secondary experience.
I think so much of how everything happens in this country, this isn't a very profound insight,
but is about this internalised sense, what we all have carrying around about places where we have we can go to another place.
We can't go to, things where we we are licensed to do and things we aren't licensed to do, which we sort of refer to as the classes.
But as a as an academic, it's a strange space you occupy because you're not part of that.
You're you're parallel to it. And the most valuable thing in kind of social terms about the job that I ended up doing,
the most valuable thing in other terms is that I get paid to read Latin poetry which is fantastic.
But in social terms, it's it's that I'm not constrained by who I can talk to or where I can go to or what I can contribute to.
So I'm liberated from whatever it was that that was kind of constraining this family in Merseyside in very subtle ways, really back back then.
So, I mean, that's ridiculously kind of vague, isn't it?
But that's my my contribution that my experience studying here is that I think the only negative, I guess,
experience, I would say, but that I want to flag is not I think is part of a wider issue that's been told,
is that when coming to Oxford for the first time and saying what I was studying, being somebody expressed surprise, I well, actually,
they presumed that I was an international student studying classics and that, you know, and I don't think it was because of my northern background.
Everybody is from the South. that I had to have a Skype interview.
So I think it's things like that sometimes that surprised people that I can be who I am and studying classics think without thinking of my background.
I think that's one thing that's been part of my experience.
But actually I've been really happy to see a greater awareness of things like that, that actually people study classics from all over.
They can be international, they can home students, they can be anybody from wherever.
And actually, I think by, for example, me coming on to here and representing myself and as being a classicist from a different background,
I think that's an important part of people beginning to be more aware that classics and people studying classics can come from anywhere.
So I think that's the only, I guess, negative.
But I think the positive on that side is that by speaking about experiences like this, that people become more aware and more careful and more,
I guess, active actually, in trying to find people who enjoy classics and trying to attract them to study the discipline here.
Yeah, I think I'm thinking about my undergraduate experience.
I'm actually kind of, again, built up in my head that coming to Oxford.
Everyone will be different. Everyone would practically be conversant in Greek whereas.
I was just about to start Greek having got started at school,
but there was definitely much less of an impact on my experience than I kind of expected there to be.
And I think adding to what Cristina was saying, I mean,
one thing that I always want to do with potential applicants is kind of get them into the city during term time.
Get get them around when I get them here when when students are, which is, you know, administrative terms,
incredibly difficult and and particularly when people are coming from a long way away.
But it's so valuable because people have a kind of a mental image of of Oxford,
which is kind of dreaming spires and the gorgeous buildings and and people dressed in cravats just sort of wandering around and they land here and they walk around.
and talk to students and they see exactly that diversity.
They don't see as much diversity is that it should be because it's a kind of a closed circle.
But they do see a whole range of different people from different backgrounds.
And it's such a sort of penny dropping moment when these young people kind
of look around them and think there's no reason this shouldn't be my my space.
And that that's that's the fundamental thing that they can sort of see this space as their space is a
space where they can do interesting things and enjoy themselves and have friends and learn and and so,
yeah, I think you're right in seeing it living and breathing with the energy.
I think also that there is in Oxford, not just the city,
but within the university and and all the different exciting people that are brought together to study classics in particular.
Is such a valuable experience.
Is there anything else that you think with us all coming from the North that you would have appreciated experiencing before you came to Oxford?
You know, if you were trying to reach and engage prospective students from the north,
is there anything in particular that you feel specific to the region would be even more helpful?
I do think Oxford is a has become something of a university of the South East.
In terms of, you know, a broad character of the people that think of it naturally as a place to apply to,
the big question is how we communicate the idea generally to people in my neck of the woods in Merseyside or up the coast or northeast.
I mean, how how can we make them understand that this is this is a place where they would enjoy themselves and learn what they need to learn?
I'm not sure - I think this kind of thing.
I think that using sort of contemporary technology to show people how, you know, what kind of people we are or aren't.
Yes. And and where we where we are and so on is one way of doing it.
But that's the that's the that's the key thing. And that's the most difficult thing as well,
I think transport wise is also something that's a huge consideration for me, that I don't have a car.
So having to think about Oxford being actually so far away and how to move all my stuff and,
you know, the comfort of being in the north would be just,
you know, or at home generally and having to transport all of these different things down into the south.
And actually, I think by showing people that it is doable and not hiding that it might be difficult.
But actually, you know, saying that it is doable, there is support out there and there are other people who have done it before.
who can maybe offer advice as to what trains you can get, just simple things like that for me personally, Cambridge.
And Oxford thinking about that, I was thinking about how can I actually physically and cheaply get to the university,
you know, on the train without having to change the train, taking 50 bags off the train.
So things like that, just thinking not only about the subject-side,
I think about all the things that Oxford can offer and support and think about the students in
particular who have different experiences and getting there and can actually help give advice.
I think that's one thing that's really valuable.
So we should show who we are, what our experiences are, how we can actually help, and that it's not just your left on your own up at the north.
If you want to get to Oxford and you have no way to approach that, you find open day speak to.
Students, get in touch with the colleges, see if they have any students from the north and say,
oh, I have some questions about transportation or finance, get in touch about that.
And I think getting those questions answered is really key to feeling better and feeling not lost, that you're just you have no idea what to do.
So you won't even bother applying and finding out. I think everybody is willing to help.
If you have questions, just say and then somebody will know the answer.
Yeah, I think building on that. Classicists, especially Oxford Classicists, in my experience,
are just the kind of people who will go as far as they can to the ends of the earth if they have to,
to help you, because we want more northern classicists.
We kind of appreciate that it shouldn't be confined to those who studied Latin and Greek from the womb.
So we want to encourage that. And people are willing to help.
Exactly, because it aligns with their interests of wanting to to diversify the subject.
It's really not difficult to find people who want to help.
We just have to send one email or make one phone call and help will kind of pour forth in my experience.
Exactly. And you'll be able to find links to outreach in the North and also to all of the different link colleges.
So those Oxford colleges that have links with different regions in the North on our regional classics Web page when it comes to not just Oxford,
but also classics, maybe Oxford classics. But are there any other myths that you would like to dispel?
One about other languages and how you gain access to to the courses here.
And the fundamental story being that it's it's great if you've had the opportunity to to learn Latin at school.
It's great if you've had the opportunity to learn Greek at school,
but you don't need either of those at all or to A level or equivalent at all to apply for a range of courses here at here at Oxford.
What you need is a a motivation and an enthusiasm to to to learn about these cultures in all the kind of diverse ways that you can learn about them.
We've been we've been talking about. But that's that's the main thing.
People people assume that they're not they're just fundamentally not qualified to apply.
And they are, everybody is qualified to apply.
Can I just add on to that that I think one myth or misconception is whatever your thinking that the people are like,
they are probably most likely not what you're thinking,
that even if you think everybody is they're so smart, they're so unfriendly, everybody knows each other, all of these things.
That's not true because in any place there will be other people who are feeling exactly the same as you and actually, although I'm saying this,
I felt exactly the same way, which is why I can say that I was completely wrong about everybody.
And I've made really close friends who are studying classics like minded who, you know, we all procrastinate.
We all do things that students do because we're human beings.
And I think that's something that whatever you're thinking and presuming about other people.
I think it's a great lesson in any case, to not ever presume anything, but particularly with Oxford classics that everybody went to the same schools.
They all know each other. You're the only outsider. That's not true.
There are always people that feel exactly the same as you who want to be friends with you and that you just have to dispel that.
Be brave and and just go for it. Make that conversation.
There are always people who are going to like you because everybody wants to make friends and they want to be connected by the fact that we're all learning.
So don't let any of your own preconceptions about what people might be or what the course might be.
Hinder you from going, go and find out what it's like,
and then you'll find out most likely that all your worries or most of your worries were not not anything to be worried about.
Fantastic. I think that is a wonderful note on which to do end this episode.
You summed it up so beautifully there Cristina,
Thank you so much to all three of our panellists for sharing your thoughts and experiences with us today.
And thank you for listening to this episode of Regional Classics. We hope that you will join us for the next episode soon.