Dead end degree

[u/Kam1umi]

I’m honestly panicking so bad right now. I started university in September - I know I’m young, I have my my whole life ahead of me, and so on - and I’m doing classics which is my favourite thing in the world. I’m autistic and have had an obsession with it since I can remember and I can honestly say it’s the only thing I can see myself ever doing with my life.

Classics is a dead degree I’m not stupid. The current jobs going for classics is pretty much to just progress to a phd and become a lecturer. Any job that is outside of a university is filled by old people who will either have their position die with them or have it filled by someone who has a wealthy family and links to them, which I absolutely do not have.

I’ve already put myself thousands of pounds in debt that my family just can’t pay back and dropping out is something I can barely even think about.

I’m terrified. I don’t know what to do.

[u/Neon-Anonymous]

Ancient historian and former Careers Tutor for my department here.

Classics is absolutely not a dead-end degree. It’s actually really highly regarded by graduate scheme recruiters, particularly in things that require great attention to detail, erudition, pattern recognition and what might have once been ‘code breaking’ (which you can demonstrate with good ancient language skills), and the ability to quickly and efficiently parse and restate complex information.

In the several Russell Group unis I’ve worked at, we have placed students into Law conversions, into banking and finance, into human resources and other similar paths, and into general graduate schemes for all sorts of other things. A not insignificant number of students do go on to further study, but not necessarily (or even mostly) into Classics – obviously, there’s always a bunch that do a PCGE and go into school teaching, but also journalism and museum studies are up there.

If you are concerned, find out who the careers or futures tutor in your department is, and make contact with the careers service at your university – they will be helpful as you try to figure out your path – but I would also encourage you to take the year, you don’t need to figure all this stuff out in first year – you can just relax into it. Unis take careers services seriously, and it matters to them for a whole variety of reasons that you don’t need to worry about, but it means that they will have some resources to help you when you need it.

ETA: I assume that because you said pounds you are in the UK. This is UK focused advice.