Profile: Sarah

“A triumvirate of fantastic Classics teachers were responsible for taking me from an 11-year-old who listened to Greek myths on cassette to the 21-year-old Classics MPhil student I am today. My school careers adviser told me to ‘be realistic’ when I tentatively said I might apply for the Classics BA at Cambridge; I’m will forever be glad I didn’t pay much attention. When my old Latin teacher told me that Classics was a way of understanding everything about the world, he wasn’t lying. Over the past four years I’ve studied literature, history, philosophy, linguistics (the ultimate Marmite subject if there is one) and art, and had two existential realisations: how far we’ve moved on from our Greco-Roman predecessors and how closely our cultures and societies are still intertwined. Classics is a perpetual process of self-examination, conducted through the lens of studying the expressions of a culture far removed in the past. The particular beauty of Cambridge is that I’ve been able to add to that original triumvirate of Classics teachers a whole host of inspirational, creative researchers and academics, who see the same worth in studying the same voices from the past. Even as a postgrad I’m still excited to share my research with the people whose books I read as a teenager.”

Sarah, MPhil student