ἠφανισμένος

Anybody still around? How are applications coming? I've almost finalized my list of schools. I still need to secure one more letter of recommendation. And I'm working on statements of purpose. Since I'm applying to all MA programs, I'm trying to strike that delicate balance between the general and specific: I don't want to sound like I know exactly what I want to do, but I also want to demonstrate that I have good reasons for applying to any MA program in classics and, in particular, to each program I've selected. PhD SoPs seem a bit easier to navigate in that respect.

Ah, you're right, it does say "nearly two years." I missed that when I looked it up. But that's a lot of material to cover in eight weeks.

The answer varies by department. In my own case, I was able to walk into fourth-semester Latin based only on my own claim that I could do the work. But I don't think you can make the ECTS to US credits conversion quite so simply. Eight weeks at Cork might prepare you for fourth-semester Greek or it might actually prepare you for third-semester Greek. It depends on what you're reading at the end of the course and the standards of the US classics department.

There are quite a few people working in SLA in the linguistics department and others at UIUC. Might be worth a look.

For admissions, I can't see how it would benefit you. For TAships, if there is a real practicum involved, it might help. Bear in mind, though, that TEFL/TESOL/etc. courses are a dime a dozen and are often no good. The industry standard is the Cambridge CELTA or Trinity TESOL, and to a lesser extent SIT. Those courses include observed teaching practice and take about a month (40 hours a week or so). One of those plus a bachelor's (or often just the bachelor's) lets you apply for entry-level EFL jobs. But since you already have teaching experience, I'd suggest saving your money and just reading a book like Ferris and Hedgcock's Teaching ESL Composition.

I'm not a historian, but I would add that I got my French reading up to speed with French 101 + 102 and a wonderful book called French for Reading. The classes help you with pronunciation (which is especially important for French) and with developing some spoken fluency, though not much. They give you a jumpstart on internalizing the structures of the language. Then go through French for Reading starting with or after your second semester, and you'll be well on the way to reading French. I don't mean to say that developing reading ability in French is easy, because it's not, but it is certainly doable with the right tools.

You might try the Religion subforum regarding ideas for Greek, Hebrew, and possibly Arabic. If you're a Christian, you could look at organizations that do Bible translation work in the field, though this is not everyone's cup of tea for a variety of sometimes controversial reasons.

As heliogabalus says, Latin PLUS Spanish or French (ideally with state teaching certification) would give you a decent shot at high school jobs. Virtually no high schools offer Greek, aside from the rare elite places like Boston Latin School. An MA in historical linguistics, though, is not (I don't think) what high schools are looking for. They need to see courses in the subject area on your transcript. But is this the first semester of your MA? If so, give it time. It takes a while to become acclimated to grad school.

The APA keeps a list of calls for papers (CFPs), which you can check regularly. There's also the listserv Classics-L, but I rarely see CFPs on it. For the UK in particular and Europe more generally, the listserv Classicists has CFPs quite frequently.

I don't think I've ever seen a dual-degree program, where you actually earn both an MA and an MAT. MATs typically focus on Latin only, since virtually no high school offers Greek, so you would only have room for a course or two of Greek, if that. You might consider doing an MA in classics and looking at private high school jobs, since they often do not require state teaching certification.

Furcifera and BAW, I'm also applying to MAs. I wasn't a classics major as an undergrad, and I'm not sure I want to do a PhD, so for both of those reasons I'm sticking with MA programs this time around. I'm looking at a lot of the same programs you guys are. I'm definitely applying to Kentucky, Georgia, Vanderbilt, and Notre Dame. I may add one or more of Colorado, WUSTL, FSU, UF, and Minnesota. I've heard good things about the MA programs at Kansas and Arizona, both of which have funding, I believe, though I'd prefer not to move that far from family. Furcifera, I didn't know Texas accepted MA-only applicants. Or are you applying for the PhD there? As far as websites go, yeah, I'm a fan of clear admissions requirements, especially as a non-classics major. And faculty pages with CVs are pretty helpful too.

What are some of the MA programs you're thinking of? I haven't asked any recommenders yet either. I should probably do that in the next few weeks . . .

The trick is finding large quantities of Greek and Latin texts that are actually comprehensible. And by that I mean texts that you can just sit down and read without extensive notes and without looking up more than a few words per page. Mounce and Wheelock, at least for their target audience, don't cut it. For Latin, the best thing in existence is Oerberg's Lingua Latina. It starts with very simple Latin and gradually teaches grammar and new vocabulary in Latin. For Greek, there isn't anything quite like Lingua Latina. But there's the JACT Reading Greek course, which begins with simple Greek stories and gradually increases in difficulty. The vocabulary and notes are in English, though. For something more immersive, though, you could have a look at Polis. Though there isn't yet an English translation, most of the book is in Greek anyway. But I wouldn't stop with just reading. Writing (not translating from English) and speaking Greek and Latin would be beneficial as well. Check out Schola and Σχολή.

Just to be sure . . . you're aware this is the classics subforum, not philosophy, right? By all means stick around though! I took the GRE a couple years ago and won't be retaking it this season. You?

Within classics? I'm particularly interested in ancient religion and in patristics / late antiquity. Am I justified in guessing from your moniker that you're interested in ancient philosophy?

Is it way too early to start this thread? Anyone else out there working on applications due in a few months? Wouldn't mind some moral support . . .

To be clear, the APA is the professional organization for classics as a whole, so it's really quite broad in scope.

I think it's worth having a profile if only because results from academia.edu show up relatively high in searches (for, say, your name). It's in the top five results for my name plus a word related to the field. Even if all you do is put up your CV and a link to your own site or departmental page, it makes you that much easier to find. I've also found interesting papers through the research interests I follow that I probably would never have seen otherwise.

If you really and truly can do only one or the other, I think Latin would offer more immediate and long-term reward -- you could take the fall course and your language study next year would be that much farther along. On the other hand, I didn't find that studying for the GRE was all that time-consuming. Get a prep book, take some practice tests, brush up on math -- I would think half an hour a day between now and August would be more than enough, which ought to leave time for Latin. I did take the old version, though, but I doubt studying for the new version is substantially different.

My sense is that it would be somewhat presumptuous for a graduate student to approach a professor about guest lecturing. I think it would depend on how well you know the professor and how far advanced you are in your program, though.

If the first Vanderbilt rejections really did go out on April 13th, then yeah, that seems ridiculous. I don't recall anyone stating the situation in those terms before.

For the advocates of the "shame campaign," how do you know that these schools are directly responsible for increasing the April 15th chaos? On one hand, perhaps schools are indeed harboring malice aforethought, delighting in their sorry treatment of applicants who paid them good money. On the other hand, perhaps schools are themselves waiting on their first-round offers to accept or decline, in order to then extend further offers to those on an official or unofficial waitlist. Any DGS knows that it is in his or her best interest to get offers out as soon as possible, but of course they can extend only a certain amount of offers at a given time. Extending additional offers requires that first-round admits decline. Since many of those first-round admits are also waiting on other schools, a cycle of indecision results. I really don't think it's as simple as departments just dragging their feet because they can.

If you haven't already seen it, this volume's list of authors may be useful.

I was under the impression that such language was standard. If the funding simply is not available in a given year, universities would rather not be sued by graduate students for violating the contract. My current program (not lit, FWIW) as well as many that I've researched note that funding is contingent on the money actually being there and on performance.

For ancient languages, "beginning" usually refers to the first year of study (two semesters) and "intermediate" to the second year (two semesters). Intermediate reading proficiency, in my experience, usually indicates that you've finished four total semesters of the language. In practical terms, that means you've been through a first-year textbook (Wheelock's, Learn to Read Latin, Cambridge, or something like that) and you've spent the second year reading authentic texts. For what it's worth, I've taken both Greek and Latin courses for which I had not taken the prerequisities, but my language ability was adequate because of studying on my own. I talked to the instructor, explained that I thought I could handle it, and was allowed to take the class -- with the provision that I would drop if it proved to be too much.