Advice on Post-Secondary Education

[Skipper]

My perspective is that of a guy who was in the infantry for 24 years and a lot of that time spent in COIN [counterinsurgency] operations As noted you can probably make a lot more money doing something other than classics.

But money isn’t all there is to life. Looking back and seeing that you have made a difference is a real reward in and of itself. Not saying you should get to be 65 and be a pauper but achievement is also valuable.

That having been said - we will be engaged in unconventional warfare for the rest of your life time as no one is dumb enough to take on the U.S. military in a conventional manner at present. COIN is the principle conflict methodology we will be involved in for several decades to come.

So one option is you can focus on classics with an eye toward how Alexander and the Romans both approached insurgents and unconventional warfare [as well as others, both winners and losers] as an undergraduate then get a masters in COIN or Counter Terror from American Military University and be of value to the CIA or State Department. Along the way if you can pick up Arabic or French, Dari or Pashtu [in that order] you become very valuable indeed.

If you have the grit, killer instinct and endurance for it, you could try to become a Marine Infantry Officer [a very difficult thing to attain]. I say the Corps because the Army is fixated on conventional warfare and has to be dragged kicking and screaming to the COIN table with bloody fingernail prints all the way there. They hate COIN with a red passion. The Corps does a far better job at COIN than does the Army.

Full disclosure, if you go the CIA or USMC route, there is no guarantee you will survive to retire. I was lucky. Most of my friends I started with are dead.

[Michael J. Taylor]

Well Michigan has a very strong Classics program--David Potter immediately comes to mind. A strong education from a great program like Michigan will certainly help you do whatever you want to do.

That said, no high school hires military historians--although with a BA in Classics or History you could certainly teach at the high school level. Collegiate teaching is another bag of worms--for this you would need to commit 6-8 years to a PhD , and the jobs are VERY scarce as of late.

But majoring in classics is a good idea whatever you want to do. I'm here in California, and our governor Jerry Brown was a Classics major at UC Berkeley.

[Dan Howard]

BAs mean nothing in the US these days. You need a post graduate degree to even get a job interview. How much does it cost today to get a Classics post graduate degree in a decent college in the US? How much does a High School teacher earn? As far as I can tell, unless someone else is paying for your education, you will spend your entire life trying to climb out of that debt hole. All it takes is for one thing to go wrong - a lost job, unexpected medical bills, a protracted court case - and you are finished. You need to choose between owning your own home and a Classics degree because the education system in the US today will prevent you from having both.

[Skipper]

With all respect to Mr. Taylor, I am not sure using Jerry ‘Moonbeam' Brown as an example of why you should get a degree in the Classics is the best of all possible endorsements...

[Michael J. Taylor]

Ha, point taken (although 4 term governor of California ain't bad). Nonetheless, Classics is not a road to nowhere: Classics majors in fact have the highest scores on the LSAT or any major.

[sraoses]

Above all, undergraduate major is not important except in the obvious fields. I would say do classics. Few things are more rewarding than learning languages. For you, Latin and Greek would doubtless be especially joyful. I can't fathom any disadvantage to doing classics. If you want to pursue a history PhD, a classics undergrad major is no less advantageous than a history major. The other way around is not necessarily true.

I think the OP is making it fairly clear that he does have a passion for the discipline, and becoming an academic could be a great option for him. If you have this interest now, I would expect that even as an undergraduate you might get to know professors, do research projects, take grad-level courses, and so on. If by the time you are applying to grad school you have a fairly clear idea what you want to research, you should be good---but provided it is a wise thing to want to research. It is true that you will not be likely to ever make a whole career out of being the world's leading expert on Roman helmet construction. But you neither need to be thinking that specifically now, nor is it likely that someone who is passionate about ancient military history would not be interested in ancient history in general.

As for money, some people want a career that will let them have a house with a swimming pool and Ferrari, some people want a career that will allow them to spend most of each day studying ancient history. Money is a means to an end, and to each his own.

Follow your dreams.

BTW: How on EARTH did the topic of becoming a secret agent come up? :?: :lol:

[Walhaz]

As for money, some people want a career that will let them have a house with a swimming pool and Ferrari, some people want a career that will allow them to spend most of each day studying ancient history. Money is a means to an end, and to each his own.

Follow your dreams.

BTW: How on EARTH did the topic of becoming a secret agent come up? :?: :lol:

It is important to realize that "a swimming pool and a Ferrari" versus "spend most of each day studying ancient history" is a false comparison. A more accurate comparison would be something along the lines of "able to live within your means" and "defaulting on student loan debt, which is never discharged."

The fact that the OP has what sounds like a very good deal to get his undergraduate is a huge, huge plus for him/her. He could conceivably leave college with a degree (in whichever field) and no student debt. It is unlikely that he or she will get some sort of super-high salary job to be able to afford a house with a swimming pool and a Ferrari; those kinds of luxuries are not very common in middle-class America, or what's left of it. However, he could get a job that pays all of his bills, allows him to save for retirement, and even have a little left over to spend on hobbies, hobbies like studying classics.

A PhD in Classics is not necessarily going to get you a job in the academy (in fact it's sort of unlikely), and it won't help you against your competitors who only have an undergraduate, and you will also be in severe amounts of debt. Even if you are lucky enough to get a job in academia, it will be so low-paying that you'll have to take adjunct teaching jobs at community colleges or online colleges, which also pay very low. Essentially you will be working one job plus several part-time jobs just to keep yourself treading water. So you won't have any free time to study classics, and you won't be studying the classics at your job, either: you'll be making syllabi, grading papers, making sure your classes conform to the policies of your institute, etc.


I just don't think it's a good idea to take a remarkable gift like a free secondary education and still wind up with a lousy job, huge debt, and no way out. Of course, apparently you could become a secret agent or the governor of California, so maybe I have no idea what I'm talking about.....

[Dan Howard]

FWIW I first studied engineering when I left school. I had a career and paid off a significant chunk of my mortgage before I went back to study History and Classics in my thirties. Now I have the training, the income, and the time to both to earn a living and follow my interests. I have a "real" job in addition to earning a little pocket money doing what I enjoy, which is studying Classics and military history. Fortunately I live in Australia where my education cost significantly less than it would have in the US. A modest repayment plan saw it completely paid off in less than five years of full time work.

[richsc]

Just had to chime in on Roman intelligence: Rosemary Sheldon at VMI (there you go for an example on teaching military history) has written books on that, and has strong opinions on relating modern military intelligence to ancient Roman practices.

As to where to teach military subjects, why not a military academy? VMI, West Point, the War College, etc. There is a 'Society of Ancient Military Historians", or SAMH as well, who actually do have conferences from time to time. I think like most academics they really don't talk to each other much.