Talmid

Next Friday, July 3, we will launch a free reading group meeting on Friday evenings over Zoom. Carmina 1-3 for the first session. To join, leave a comment in the Facebook announcement for it found in this link: https://www.facebook.com/groups/909454979466611/?epa=SEARCH_BOX

Please see this new Facebook group for announcements/notices pertaining to Zoom gatherings for studying Latin. No cost, you can volunteer to lead one too. Latin Study Groups Using Zoom

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Update on Nerdy Classics Majors... 2 years later, we’re well over 200 members. Come Join us on Facebook! https://m.facebook.com/groups/1188003901262141?ref=bookmarks

ClassicsCandidate, thanks for your courage to share your work, and I REALLY enjoyed your story. I knew I could count on you to join this discussion. Unfortunately, this forum is not very active or else everyone is shy. Hopefully others will chime in. Let's keep our fingers crossed. Keith

ClassicalK, I regret how inactive this forum is, but so that your question doesn’t go without a response, I’ll tell you that as a post-bacc student at UGA, I did not qualify for ANY financial aid. I did get my employer to help cover about 40% of the tuition, but it’s unbelievably expensive. Keith

Here's a more recent statement I submitted weeks ago for Villanova's online MA. I found out yesterday I was accepted for the status I requested as a visiting/non-matriculating student. I don't think that's too difficult to get into under such conditions, but seemingly this letter worked just fine to get what I wanted by applying. You'll notice I used contractions in my writing. I know in academic papers this is forbidden, but for an application, I figured the admissions committee would appreciate something that reads faster and is straight to the point. Thus, I'd love to hear if others know whether contractions are appropriate or not for submitting purpose statements. ********** My goal is to obtain a PhD in Classics after I retire in my career as an Army officer, and by applying to Villanova, I seek the university’s help toward this end through its online MA in Classical Studies. Thus, I’m applying for non-matriculation status with the possibility of seeking formal matriculation later. With a PhD in Classics, I aim to promote the discipline through outreach and to create jobs for classicists by founding classical schools in my hometown of El Paso, TX, which painfully lacks institutions for authentic liberal arts. Every class in this program will provide the foundation of learning I need to lead, teach, administrate, and set the educational philosophy for the schools I envision starting for my underprivileged community. A few more unique qualities of the program attract me. First, the program is online, and because I’m locked in a career and must provide for a family, I don’t have options to attend a campus, as there have never been graduate programs in the vicinity of my assigned military installations. Distance learning is my only hope for training in philology, and it’s the only way to maintain continuity between frequent job moves, as career service members must do every 2-3 years in addition to deployments and frequent travels. Secondly, this program offers both classical languages, and thus it differs from the emphasis in the Latin-only programs offered online by the University of Florida. As much as I love Latin, my forte is as a Hellenist, and Villanova’s program includes the Greek courses I seek. Thirdly, the program aims to benefit teachers—per this department’s website, “Villanova loves teachers!” With years of adjunct experience in New Testament Greek, I currently volunteer to substitute teach online for Freedom Project Academy and homeschool my 4 children daily in Latin, Greek, Euclid, literature, and history. Therefore, this program would equip me for my immediate pedagogical responsibilities expositing different genres of literature and interdisciplinary subjects. You will notice in my transcripts I am half-finished with University of Georgia’s post-baccalaureate certificate in classical languages. I’m currently on a year’s hiatus from this because of my recent job transfer to Europe, but I intend to resume this program to completion in the near future. I’m confident for success if accepted to Villanova—I survived the rigors of a 102-hour master’s degree and can do it again because resiliency matters. In seminary, I was inspired by one philologist and polyglot on the faculty who knew 17 languages. I have not caught up to him yet, but I’ve worked hard as an autodidact going beyond Latin and Greek by focusing on Sanskrit, Spanish, French, Hebrew, Mandarin, and German (as a side note, I live in Germany and daily communicate auf Deutsch). I’ve studied abroad, visiting archaeological sites and observing different cultures in 23 countries throughout Europe, Asia, Africa, North & South Americas, and the Near East. A voracious reader at 42 years old, through the years I’ve read by far more volume of classical literature than the average B.A. graduate in the major. In this sense, aging provides a unique benefit for getting ahead. I’m an amateur scholar in the purest sense of the word—namely, I devote myself to the discipline merely because I LOVE it! Nobody pays me to do the work, and I’m quite proud of it. Regarding professional development, I attended SCS in Toronto (2017), APA in San Diego (2007), CAMWS in Oklahoma City (2010), ACCS in Raleigh-Durham (2010), in addition to holding memberships in APA, ACL, SCL, and Ascanius. At Richard LaFleur’s personal request, I serve as his Co-Administrator for his Facebook group (“Latin in the Real World”) to foster a cyber Classics community, and I’ve assisted him at editing the newest Wheelock’s workbook (my name is mentioned in the Preface). Finally, n.b., I’m an avid book collector and have adequate resources at home for research—my personal library is impressive and provides answers to solve the exegetical challenges I’ll encounter with translating and hermeneutics. My toolbox is ready.

For the sake of helping each other, I thought it might be nice to share our purpose statements. Obviously we don't wish to plagiarize another's work, but as resume cover letters are often shared throughout the business world for training purposes, I hope my idea will be helpful to get a good feel for what has impressed admissions committees. So I'll start by breaking the ice, and I ask that you post yours if you don't mind sharing your ideas. Here's my letter for UGA's online post-bac I submitted a few years ago. Admittedly, getting into the program wasn't competitive, but this purpose statement got me accepted on my first application. ********** There are multiple reasons I wish to pursue the online Post-Baccalaureate Certificate in Classics. Having read the program’s aims and criteria for ideal applicants, I fit every general category in the candidates you seek: (1) I come from a different educational background (theology) and now wish to change directions to get a Ph.D. in Classics upon my retirement from the Army; (2) I wish to increase my knowledge of classical languages to assist me in my present related vocation as a clergyman; and (3), I am a homeschooling parent of four children and wish to increase my knowledge of classical languages to improve my pedagogy and pursue future credentials. Additionally, I have a wonderful relationship with Dr. LaFleur as one of his private tutorial students during his retirement, and consequently I have great admiration for his and UGA’s pioneering work in distance learning for classical languages. Being well into a professional career as a military officer, distance learning is my only option to prepare for grad school, and this is the only suitable program that will accommodate my status. No other American or British school offers this program via distance learning, and since I must deploy and travel a lot, being a resident student at a university is not possible. I am confident my past experiences and preparation have groomed me well for this pursuit. I am a seminary graduate with some 34 semester hours of New Testament (NT) Greek, and I have taught the first year of NT Greek at the college level three times (currently adjunct for Howard Payne University). In one of my semesters I taught from Crosby & Schaeffer just so I could learn classical Greek by teaching it. Currently I am instructing my 3rd grader from Wheelock’s Latin, and I was appointed the department tutor in Latin when I worked at The Master’s College as an Academic Counselor and Adjunct Professor (2003-2008). On my own and in school I have also studied Hebrew, Sanskrit, German, and Spanish, and I have taken study trips to archeological sites around the Mediterranean and spent nine months in ancient Bactria (my deployment to Afghanistan obviously). From 2010-2011, I was the Principal of The Classical School of Wichita, a traditional Latin school in Kansas where I gained exposure to the methods of Latin pedagogy at the primary and secondary levels of education. Although some of my background in education and languages may seem decent, I feel it is deficient in some ways, and this is also why I wish to study more in this Post-Bacc program. Namely, my background in NT Greek is very narrow, and Graduate Advisors at other universities have directed me to enter a Post-Bacc program to broaden my exposure to classical writers. Right now I do not have enough of a Classics background to matriculate in a grad program. Although I am lacking in formal credit hours in Latin and classical Greek, at nearly 40 years old, I have had a lot more time than typical undergraduates to read classics in translation and study its ancillary disciplines of history, art, music, archeology, philosophy, religion, numismatics, literary theory, etc. I am a voracious reader and have thousands of volumes and some rare books in my personal library—in my home I have all the necessary tools to conduct careful research and produce sound scholarship. Beyond the languages, I love reading the Great Books series compiled by Mortimer Adler and solving Euclidean geometry. I am a life-long learner in the classical tradition and liberal arts. Just for personal edification, I attended the annual meetings of APA, CAMWS, and Association of Classical & Christian Schools, and I held memberships in ACL, APA, and Society for Classical Learning. I have also read many volumes of TAPA, AJP, The Classical Outlook, and Amphora newsletters. In the mornings as I cook breakfast, I watch Donald Kagan on YouTube or listen to Susanna Braund on iTunesU to supplement my readings. As you can see from all of my activities, I have an insatiable desire to learn in this field, and I am willing to do whatever it takes to grow in my knowledge of the classical world in spite of my present circumstance being detached from the academy.

I'll offer an idea on how to attend a meeting like SCS or CAMWS. I've gone to these over night meetings at least 3 times, and each time my employers paid for me to go. As long as your employer has money to send you to training, it's easy to make a convincing case to attend. For example, I had the Army send me last year to Toronto for SCS. I explained to my boss that, as a military chaplain, I would learn about military history, ancient religion, and Greek & Latin (the languages of theology). As it turned out, all of these topics were discussed in the various sessions, thus my employer was happy to pay for my attendance as a matter of professional development. So it all depends on how you pitch your proposal to your employer. Since Classics is now largely interdisciplinary, you can find any topic discussed at the meeting which likely will relate to your present job in some manner. Give it a shot!

Hi @ClassicsCandidate. I'll be honest. The lack of interaction with my classmates was a let-down, but that's because I had only 1-2 other students in my Greek classes who weren't very active in the message forums. I would post my comments and questions, and they wouldn't interact with me until the very last week before the class ended. Small classes killed the dynamic of having a vibrant online learning community. Thus I felt all alone going through the course, but thankfully Dr. Corrigan was always there to engage my ideas and offer professional advice about the discipline. Over the past 2 years, I've had a couple of opportunities to visit the department at UGA in person and sit in Dr. Platter's classes. The students and faculty really seemed to enjoy their community and have fun learning together. Though I can't be there in person more often, I've had to find ways to overcome the disadvantage of not being on campus. One thing I've done was to have my employer, the U.S. Army, send me to the SCS meeting last year in Toronto. That helped me to hear what ideas were currently being discussed in the discipline as well as make connections with scholars from around the world. Additionally, now that I live in Germany, I'm using this once in a lifetime opportunity to learn conversational and literary German as I'm sure it'll be necessary if I ever go to grad school. I also make it a point to network with any Classicists that I come across where ever the Army sends me for job training or duty stations. Most professors will let you visit their classes if you contact them ahead of time and ask to be an observer. I think an advantage older folks in the online program have over most university students is that we have more job and life experiences, which have a positive impact of instilling wisdom. Campus environments become very insular--such as Evergreen State College--leaving students out of touch with the real world and not knowing expectations for entering the work force outside of academia. As an online learner, we have to work two and three times as hard to find answers since we don't encounter peers or mentors on a daily basis to help with questions. Thus we become stronger autodidacts and can learn new disciplines without teachers (that's how I"m currently learning German--to say nothing of being self-taught in Hebrew, Latin, Sanskrit, Mandarin, Spanish, and Euclid). Anyhow, I highly recommend you pursue UGA's online program. Perhaps I'll have you in class when I resume in the fall with Latin. If you wish to keep in touch, you can send a FB friend request to Keith Saare. Vale, amice (or amica?). Keith

At long last I can contribute something useful for this forum! I'm a current student in UGA's online post-bac in classical languages. I'm currently taking a break to get settled into a recent move to Germany, but I've finished 3 out of the 5 required classes and hope to continue this fall. I've been very impressed at the rigor and excellence Dr. Corrigan put into each of her courses. Prior to matriculating in the program, I had a low view on the quality of online learning, but all of that changed when I began her courses and found them much harder than the seminary level Greek and Hebrew I took in a brick and mortar school. Like any educational experience, the program has its ups and downs. On the positive side, the rigor is intense--this is no degree mill. Dr. Corrigan is excellent at answering emails and producing course materials in a timely fashion. On the negative side, you'll feel detached from a community and the tuition is unbelievably high. There is no financial aid for the program. Here is the Facebook group for the program: https://www.facebook.com/groups/1652717068338675/ I was interviewed by U.S. News & World Report about the program: https://www.usnews.com/education/online-education/articles/2016-12-01/finish-graduate-school-requirements-online-after-college My interview for UGA: https://online.uga.edu/node/5336 Finally, check out this Facebook group I created to help me cope with being detached from a Classics community as an online student, "Nerdy Classics Majors": https://www.facebook.com/groups/1188003901262141/

Rin - I wish I had found your posting much sooner than 3 months later. Unfortunately this forum isn't as active with postings as it should be, but I'll gladly engage your message. Bottom line up front: I don't have any news to share other than what you've already discovered about online MA programs. I've been trying to find a suitable MA in Classics by an American school for probably a decade, but our options are very, VERY miniscule. Here's a few bullets of what I know: - Villanova is the closest to what you're looking for. - University of Florida does a Latin-based MA and PhD, mainly for Latin teachers however. - University of Georgia has an online Post-Bac in Classical Languages, but this is not your interest. - American Military University has an online Graduate Certificate, and maybe an MA, in Ancient Mediterranean history, but it's FOR PROFIT. - University of Wales, Trinity Saint David, does distance in Classics, but it's in Great Britain. Other British schools include Birmingham, London, Open University, and perhaps a couple more. - Texas Tech at one time advertised a distance MA and then the Dean immediately rescinded the program, probably because of a failure to have it accredited properly. - There are a few Great Books based programs offered online more and more nowadays, but this isn't quite your interest either. See Harrison Middleton University, Knox Theological Seminary, Faulkner University. - New Saint Andrews in Moscow, Idaho, offers a distance M.St., I think, in classical languages, or you can create a classical languages based program if you pick all the right courses for electives. - I once found a distance MA or PhD from a university in South Africa and maybe even New Zealand. I think that's all I can remember through the past dozen years I've been looking. Good luck.

Salvete omnes. It's high time to have a vibrant Facebook community devoted to Classics. Thus I've created the new group Nerdy Classics Majors. Please join. Thanks! https://www.facebook.com/groups/1188003901262141/

Not research, but something related to our interests. As a homeschooling father, I'm getting three of my kids (ages: 7, 7, 9) started in Pharr's Homeric Greek. My 9-year just audited my college course last spring and was my top performer (he obviously had an advantage of learning everyday at home with dad). Some wonderful news is there's a new edition of Pharr's book edited by Paula Debnar which makes it much more appropriate for starters. This challenge for learning may seem audacious, but it's not. Some 150 years ago this was normal stuff for kids, and in our generation a lot of homeschoolers are now rediscovering what levels kids are really capable of performing at. When my son was 7 he read both of Homer's epics (Fagles) and Virgil (Fitzgerald). At 8, he read the Oxford History of the Classical World cover to cover. Now he's almost finished with Don Quixote (all 900+ pages in the Penguin Classics series). I think he knows more about the Romans than I do. My 7-year old daughter is currently reading Jane Austen's Emma with me, and we're having so much fun together loving Austen's wit. A 7-year old reading Austen with pleasure, imagine that! Not Dick & Jane. All three kids have been doing Mandarin too, and with my youngest son (7 yrs), since he's adopted from China, I've been trying to help him learn about his heritage. He's getting excited about being Chinese and loves everything pertaining to the culture. Anyhow, I better stop here, but for you future parents, I encourage you to consider homeschooling as a viable option. You'll love it as much as I do.

Hi Heisenberg. I've started a Facebook group for the program--it's still under construction, so it isn't very good at this point. But please like it to join and be patient until it is really up and running: https://www.facebook.com/groups/1652717068338675/. I created it to build an online community for the students, prospective students, alumni, faculty, and friends of UGA's online post-bac program. As far as your questions go above, I'm a current student and just finished my first class this semester, the Proseminar. Over all, I'm very satisfied with the quality of my experience. Dr. Corrigan is the head prof for the program, and she's been amazing for taking care of the student body (some 4 students this semester). The quality of her products for the class--syllabus, assignment instructions, etc.--is a lot better than most other products I've seen online at other schools where professors take a minimalist approach to drafting a syllabus. Cr. Corrigan really puts good detail into her work, and she challenges us quite well. A typical assignment I had from her required me to build a bibliography of no more than 25 resources on a selected topic using the library's main search engines and databases like l'Annee Philologique, Dyabola, Oxford Bibliographies Online, etc. (I had to do this in the areas of numismatics, archaeology, philology, epigraphy, papyrology, and linguistics.) The screencasts taught us how to use the search tools, and I learned how to use Zotero for my citations. Thank God for Zotero! (Because of Zotero, kids these days now have it a lot easier than when I was last in school relying on Turabian's 6th edition for citations!!) What was equally important for my learning this semester was my self-motivation and initiative to learn beyond the objectives Dr. Corrigan determined for the course. I went beyond to read heavily in the areas of the history of classical scholarship, bibliography, and methodology--thus I purchased additional books and started studying long before the class even began. As you might expect with a new start-up program, there were some growing pains to overcome, and even now we're still learning how to overcome obstacles. One of them last week was dealing with the registration holds placed on our accounts due to the Registrar and Health Services not knowing how to handle online Post-Bac students in the classics department. I had a couple of frustrating phone calls with the Registrar and clinic until a fellow classmate emailed our cohort with a solution she found with someone to talk to in the advising center. That solved the problem I was having with registration. There was also an issue before the semester started in which there seemed to be an administrative difficulty appointing a professor for my class, and it continued after the course started. For me it was a good lesson in building character and patience, and eventually Dr. Corrigan took the responsibility upon herself to help us, thus solving the issue. Anyhow, I highly recommend this program as I've been pleased with the return on my tuition.