Bachelor of Arts [B.A] [Classics - Greek Track] From University of Miami

In the Western tradition, the study of 'Classics' has focused upon the languages, thoughts, literatures, and cultures of ancient Greece and Rome, and their impact on the whole subsequent history of the Western world.

The study of Classics has been conceived in unusually broad terms; it is intended to encompass everything that can be known about the ancient Mediterranean world. There is room in Classics for the study of fields as disparate as literature, science, sculpture, history, architecture, religion, philosophy, theater, economics, music -- in short, the entire panorama of human endeavor. It is no wonder that the study of Classics has always tended to attract some of the liveliest and most brilliant intellects; and it is equally unsurprising that students majoring in Classics find themselves extremely well-prepared for undertaking practically any type of career, whether that be in politics, law, medicine, teaching, publishing, research of all kinds, journalism, banking, or the corporate world. A degree in Classics marks the UM graduate as a person of superior analytical and critical skills, one who has proved able to cope with a rigorous academic curriculum, and who is exceptionally educated in the most fundamental aspects of what it means to be human. Thus, Classics is at the core of the humanities.

The educational objectives of the Department of Classics may be stated in a variety of ways, and on a number of levels. In terms of linguistic competency, students majoring (or minoring) in Classics are required to reach an appropriate level of fluency in reading ancient Greek or Latin, or both. In terms of cultural literacy, students of the Classics are educated within a rigorous curriculum exposing them to the great literary works and material cultures of ancient Greece and Rome. In terms of critical thinking, students of the Classics are trained to hone the skills of memory, analysis, and synthesis, skills that they will be able to apply for the rest of their lives in any realm of thought or action whatsoever.

The goal of an education in Classics is to foster and inculcate an ever-burgeoning awareness of what Cicero referred to as?humanitas?-- in short, everything it is to be human. It is the mission of Classics to expose its students to the greatest thoughts and endeavors of the human race, and to encourage them to think about what that greatness consists in, and how to enlarge upon it. The profoundest educational objective of the Department of Classics is to preserve and study all that is important about the past, in order best to prepare for the future.