Classics/Geography

Classics and geography is a combination that might initially seem to span a wide intellectual distance, but both disciplines share a fundamental concern with how human beings have inhabited, understood, and shaped the world around them. Classics involves the study of the literature, history, art, and material culture of ancient Greece and Rome, with the possibility of studying Latin and Greek at any level, and it gives you access to the civilisations that laid the foundations of Western culture. Geography examines the physical and human organisation of the world as it exists today, investigating landscapes, environments, societies, and the spatial patterns that connect them.

At the University of Glasgow, this part-time programme includes a year abroad, enriching both disciplines through engagement with different academic traditions and geographical contexts. You will study the literature, history, and material culture of the ancient world, potentially reading texts in Greek and Latin depending on the path you take, alongside a range of geography topics that span physical processes, human geography, and the methods used to investigate both. The combination is unusual and stimulating, developing your capacity to engage with very different kinds of evidence, from ancient texts and archaeological remains to contemporary spatial data and environmental analysis, and to think rigorously about both the distant past and the present world.

Graduates from classics and geography combinations go on to careers in education, heritage, environmental and urban planning, research, journalism, publishing, and the civil service. The combination of classical knowledge and geographical understanding is also relevant to museum and archive work, landscape conservation, and the cultural heritage sector. Many graduates continue to postgraduate study in classics, ancient history, geography, or related fields, and some pursue academic careers in either discipline.