Skip to main content Skip to navigation

Classics and Ancient History > Community engagement

What opportunities are available for Classics and Ancient History students to engage with the national/international community?

There are considerable opportunities advertised on the website for students to engage the national and international community in various ways.

In addition to the opportunities for travel and study abroad listed in the global knowledge section above there are further opportunities for engaging with the national community.

“The first-year core modules and the optional Roman Britain module include local day-trips to museums and/or sites. Students opting for Principles and Methods of Classical Archaeology take part in a week-long dig on a local site, and visit local museums.”

digging.jpg

http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/arts/classics/admissions/

The department is very explicit about these opportunities as it seeks to attract prospective students.

Further information about similar engagement can be found in the student testimonies of Stuart Hill and Michelle Young respectively:

“The department regularly provides visits to sites of relevance and importance; during my time at the university I went everywhere from the British Museum to a Roman fort near the university, to excavating next to one of the sports pitches searching for (and finding!) evidence of Iron Age settlement, to the city of Rome itself.”

“Some of the modules that I took contained optional field trips to places such as Italy and Turkey and the Classical Society organised theatre trips and weekly socials”

http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/arts/classics/admissions/views/

In Michelle’s testimony she mentions how Classics students can also become engaged in the community through the Classical Society and organised trips through there.

Also on the website are student views of summer school at the British School at Rome:

http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/arts/classics/students/bsr_summer/

Although perhaps not open to all students, this is a good example of proactive students being able to get involved with the Classics community in a different country.

Further Analysis

The mechanism of using testimonials from past students is an interesting one. Also the image above, featured on the important admissions page fits into the wider discourse surrounding the issue of community engagement. The students in the photo all have their heads down working. To me this shows that even while presenting the fun opportunities available to students, there is a firm emphasis on meaningful study.

It seems that the use of selected student views on the website is a way of getting prospective students excited about studying Classics at Warwick. Obviously, these are only selected to be published because they are complimentary of the department. Viewed in this context, it seems important to take them with a pinch of salt, for example in Stuart Hill's testimony he mentions a lot of things that he personally experienced, but whether these are experiences common and/or available to all students should be questioned.

The context in which these views are presented is that of a successful alumni commenting on their good experiences under the department, the department is keen as always to associate what its degree courses offer with future career success.

In my interpretation, the department seems to offer mentions of the prospect of overseas trips and study tours as a "treat" to entice students, but firm details (availability? cost?) are somewhat lacking.

Summary

There appear to be many ways in which Classics students can get involved with the national and international community relating to their subject, for example through activities such as museum visits and field trips, but most international opportunities, although encouraged by staff, are extra-curricular and therefore may not be available to all students.

The department seems very keen to emphasise the opportunities it provides in this area, in both its choice of language and its choice of images.