Classics/Psychology

Classics and psychology is an unusual combination that rewards students who want to think seriously about human nature and human behaviour from both a historical and a scientific perspective. Classics involves the study of the literature, history, art and material culture of ancient Greece and Rome, engaging with some of the most influential texts and ideas in Western intellectual history, from Homer and Thucydides to Plato and Virgil. Psychology is the scientific study of mind and behaviour, using empirical research methods to investigate how people think, feel, learn and interact.

Together they provide two very different but equally serious ways of understanding what it means to be human.

At Glasgow, this four-year MA programme includes a year abroad, giving you the opportunity to study either classics or psychology, or both, in a different national academic environment. You will develop your engagement with ancient languages if you choose to study Latin or Greek, your knowledge of ancient literature and culture, and your critical and historical thinking alongside the scientific methods and theoretical frameworks of psychology. Glasgow has strong departments in both disciplines, and the combination allows you to develop genuine expertise in each.

The contrast between the methods of classics, which are hermeneutic and historical, and those of psychology, which are empirical and scientific, is intellectually productive and develops graduates who can think in genuinely different modes.

Graduates of this combination move into a wide range of careers, drawing on whichever dimension of the degree is most relevant to their interests. Law, education, the civil service, journalism, human resources, research, mental health support, arts administration and academic careers in either discipline are all destinations. Postgraduate study in classics, psychology, philosophy or ancient history is a natural option.