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Hi everyone, and welcome back to Britain under the Microscope.欢迎回到【闲话英伦】. Hello 安澜.

Hi. Lulu. Hi, everyone.

Actually. Today let's make it a special edition. Instead of talking about UK in general, let's talk about you. Are you getting scared?

Well. A little bit. Yeah.

Actually, it's because sometimes when I'm interacting with our audience, with our followers, they kind of ask so what did Anlan major in? What’s his major when he was in university？

因为大家都知道, 我是一直读语言上来的, 很多人都会问, 说安澜在大学里学的是什么？

Actually, I know for a fact that you studied something called Classics.

Yes. That's right.

翻译成什么古典或者经典什么, 这个东西是一个很特殊的学科, and I thought we can talk about that today.

OK. Goody.

I can hear the excitement in your voice.

It's a subject that I really, really loved. This is what I studied for my BA, and my MA, I studied Chinese; but I always remember my BA and this was certainly something that I really love studying, despite the fact that, let's face it, it doesn't really get you many jobs.

We can talk about the career prospects of this major in a bit.

OK.

But first things first, what is Classics？

Classics is, I would say, western subject. It's the study of classical languages.

Classical languages here means?

Ancient Greek and Latin.

Ancient Greek and Latin. So it's not even modern Greek.

No, no, ancient Greek.

Dead languages.

Well, dead-ish. But it's also the study of philosophy, art, history, and lots of other subjects all related to the ancient world, particularly Greece and Rome.

I see. So is that like, I don't know, I'm trying to relate to my experience, my own experience. So I don't know is that like a history major or what is it？

It's an arts subject. So that's why I've got a BA in arts. It's partly history, but it's also languages and philosophy as well, and archaeology.

一个generally文科的东西.

Yes. That's right.

Now I don't know if it's just a stereotype of mind or not. Is this the sort of thing that when people hear, they go like kind of like a fancy subject, because it's not very practical.

Shall we say就是听上去很高大上的, 不是那种说毕业了就能找工作, 而是那种感觉好像有钱人学的东西.

I think you’re a bit too nice to me when you say oh people go Wow, you study Classics. In my experience, most of them say why？

I've met people when they hear others are studying Classics or things like that, or like art history subjects like that, they go they must be rich, they must have rich parents.

All I can say to you and all of our listeners that is completely not true.

But do they have that kind of perception in… or stereotype in the UK as well？

To a certain extent, yes. That's because ancient Greek and Latin is mostly taught at private schools.

But the thing is, it's important to know that Classics and in particular, ancient Greek and Latin and the history and philosophy was the basis of education for centuries. So all educated people were expected to learn Latin and Greek.

I think even nowadays in the UK, people, let's just say from a probably class wise, more upper class or upper-middle class people, they were probably at some point in their education learned the Classics.

Yes, but you can also learn the Classics at state school as well, in particular history. I went to a state school.

State school就是公立学校呗.

Yeah, just an ordinary state school. I started learning Latin when I was at college, before I went to university, then I started learning Latin and Greek in more depth when I was at university.

But you mentioned this is the basis of education like with all educated people being expected to learn for a long time. That was the tradition.

That was the tradition. Medieval times, the renaissance, renaissance literally means rebirth, and we call it the renaissance because scholars started to find more Latin and Greek works, and that led to what is called humanism.

就是Renaissance是文艺复兴期, Humanism是人文主义 so that is closely linked with the study of classics, especially Latin and ancient Greek.

Oh, yeah. Because humanism is to recover the culture of ancient Greece and Rome. If you think back to western history, everything really kind of goes back to ancient Rome and ancient Greece. And particularly in the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries, people were trying to get back to that type of culture.

Yeah, because that is the root of western civilization, right？Ancient Greece and ancient Rome.

Yeah. If you look, a really good example is America. So America, when it was founded in the 18th century when they became independent, they set up a Senate with senators. And the Senate building is on Capitol Hill.

That's all ancient Rome.

That's all ancient Rome. And even the architecture in Washington DC is classical.

So even in a young country like the United States, you can still see a lot of the influence from the classical period.

Now I'm trying to relate to the Chinese setting, I think for us the classical study would be the equivalent of 国学 because we have our own classical times that we referred to… draw inspirations from.

I would say Guo Xue is probably the closest, but it's important to know that for British people and American people, our roots aren't exactly in ancient Rome, in ancient Greece. It's more of something that unites Europe.

I see, but so far we have been talking about history, historical influence, and all that drawing inspirations, it’s all very fancy stuff and I’d just like drag it back down to earth.

Yeah. Of course.

We were talking about career prospects or job prospects. Now I'm just trying to think what kind of jobs can you get after graduating with a degree in Classics？

I think back to my university friends, I have quite a few who have gone into law.

Oh, yes, I can totally see that.

In the UK, many of my friends they did what they call a law conversion course, where they study for a year on how to become a solicitor. I've also got friends that got into a wide range of different jobs, like for example, I have one that works for pharmaceutical company.

I suppose whether it’s medicine or law？These feels they do require a lot of knowledge of Latin.

Yeah, to a certain extent, you need to know and understand Latin, but it's more about Classics being interdisciplinary.

So lots of people do ask me, why do you study Classics？You're not going to really speak to anyone from Greece or Rome, are you？But that's missing the point, I would say.

Because Classics, it forces you to look at evidence, because it's 2,000 years ago, there's not much evidence remaining. It really forces you to be very critical…

Analytical.

And analytical.

So that's why I would say that Classics was a really useful subject for me because it does actually improve your critical thinking. Because what you have to do is you have to take the limited evidence that's available. You have to draw your own conclusion.

I believe you can also go into consulting, I think.

Yeah, a few of my friends went into consultancy as well.

Yes. 就是咨询顾问这块也是需要很多analytical skills.

Yeah.

And what about academics, academia, becoming like university professors, teachers?

Yeah, you can also go down that path, and to be perfectly honest when I was studying Classics that I was aiming for.

To teach Classics.

To teach Classics. So I was going to do the masters and then I was going to do a PhD, but I always remember I went to a classic library in London. My university was University College London. So…

UCL.

UCL, so I kind of used to go to this particular library very close to my university. I just remember going in there and seeing these people in their 70s or 80s still studying Classics. I just thought I really enjoy it, but do I enjoy it that much to…

Make it your entire life？

Exactly.

Yeah, I guess it's all a balancing act, right? What we go into and the decisions that we make in life, and actually about the idea of whole academia to make something your academic field. It's good but only if you truly want to make it your entire life, your professional life.

I know some people's done their PhD in Classics, they literally do their PhD on maybe two sentences that were found on a papyrus.

Yeah, I mean, there's absolutely no judgment because that's just to each his own really. It is your own choice.

It's a really interesting field. That's one of the reasons why I decided to learn Chinese is because I thought, well, I learned Latin and Greek, I can’t speak to anyone so I might as well learn Chinese…

And you can speak to at least 1.4 billion people.

I thought that was enough people to be able to speak to.

Brilliant. Okay, I think that was an interesting talk about 安澜’s university major, Classics. Drop us a line if you have anything interesting to share about your university major. Thank you, 安澜.

Thanks a lot, Lulu.

We'll see you next time.

Bye.