One of the biggest decisions I have ever made in my short life was which GCSE subjects to take. I spent days and weeks agonising over the decision, considering the pros and cons, drawing mind maps, and generally annoying the will to live out of all my family and friends. My school, a grammar school, have all of the pupils take 11 GCSEs, of which 6 are compulsory (Biology, Chemistry, Physics, Maths, English Language & Literature). Of the five we choose, two of them are ‘additional’; neither a modern language, creative, or humanity, which fill the other three slots.

After endless hours of deliberation, I ultimately decided to choose both Latin and Greek alongside my other three chosen subjects. I have had the exceptionally lucky opportunity to take Latin from Year 7 (aged 11-12), a subject taught at only 2.7% of state-funded schools compared to 49% of private schools. I had loved Latin from the beginning, with its lyrical sound and puzzle-like formation, which appealed to my thirst for deduction and discovery about ancient history. Ancient Greek seemed, to me, to be another challenge, an adventure, that would allow me to enter a whole other realm of thought: the classics. 

In 2013, only 37 UK state schools offered Ancient Greek as an A-Level. That’s 1.1%. Classics are most often associated with the ultra-posh, ultra-exclusive public schools of England; Eton, Harrow, Uppingham, etc. I considered what a remarkable chance it would be to be a girl at a state school taking such a unique and fascinating subject, alongside Latin, which I already loved. And so, alongside just six other intrepid members of my year group, I embarked on the two-year, pretty intensive Greek GCSE course that I now find myself about half-way through.

I can honestly say that Classics has changed my life. Yes, Latin and Greek are, as my friends never cease to remind me, dead languages spoken nowhere except the Vatican. Yes, I will never use them in my later life. Yes, it's a lot of essays about old dead men. But the thing about ancient languages which no one ever tells you, or you never believe, is that the skills they give you truly can be transferred to all walks of life. The problem solving and puzzling that you need to piece together words, sentences, whole stories from a set list of vocabulary and (often terrifying) grammar are transferable to a myriad of other subjects, from English to Music to History. You can appreciate myths, fables and philosophy on a higher level with even a rudimentary knowledge of the original language, regardless of whether you recognise commonly-used idioms in an abridged-for-GCSE version of Aesop, or reading Socrates in the original. And for all those science/geography people out there, memorising long, confusing words 'dendrochronology’ (dendros - tree, chronos - time, logos - story) or ‘deciduous’ (from the Latin decidere - to fall down) becomes a lot easier when you know what each part means - a few times I’ve managed to guess the definition correctly before the teacher even told us. In general, the feeling of translating a particularly hard passage or solving a spectacularly juicy tangle of grammar is honestly exhilarating. And lastly, and perhaps most importantly, you get to join a special club of people (whether you do classics at uni or read a bit of a translated Iliad on the side) who want to unravel the mysteries of the very distant past, discovering things about culture, art, religion, and perhaps even ourselves.

I hope that this piece has debunked some of the myths surrounding the study of Classics, and has inspired at least one of you to pick up that dusty old copy of Plato’s The Republic from your bookshelf. Even if you don’t fancy learning a whole other language (or two - which is fair enough), try to read about the ancient world, fiction (The Song of Achilles, Circe, Percy Jackson...) or non-fiction, and broaden your horizons. There are lots of language-learning books for beginners, too - the John Taylor Greek to GCSE course, the book I use in my lessons, is a great step-by-step guide to Ancient Greek and a good place to start if you want to self-teach. Try Latin on Duolingo, and impress your friends and family by quoting some Catullus/Homer/Virgil at them. But whatever you do, keep reading, keep learning, and stay curious. As Socrates said; 'The unexamined life is not worth living.'