Student testimonial

Christopher Burden-Strevens, Glasgow alumnus 2016

I studied Classics at Glasgow for seven years: first as an undergraduate, and then as a doctoral candidate. Without a doubt, they were the fullest and most rewarding years of my life: not only because of my own interest in the subject and the top-drawer resources provided to cultivate that interest (including a library with two million books!), but also because of the truly nurturing and warm character of the Classics department.

By far the highest point in my Ph.D. was my work as a graduate teaching assistant, in which capacity I usually spent about three or four hours a week in the classroom; just enough to keep me on the ball and keep my routine structured, but not so much as to be overwhelming. It was fantastic: when classes were voluble and well-prepared, I left the seminars buzzing and have formed some genuinely fun and fulfilling friendships with some of my former students. The way in which Classics at Glasgow makes teaching an integral part of the Ph.D. programme – unless one really doesn’t want to do it – is really distinctive to Glasgow and encouraged me to do things of which I never would have believed myself capable. Standing at the front of a lecture theatre for the first time and speaking for an hour about Plato, with a video recorder and fifty students watching you, is absolutely terrifying, but truly thrilling and rewarding.

As such, the Ph.D. programme Classics at Glasgow has helped me to grow unrecognisably in confidence and self-awareness. Recently, I’ve been lucky to have the opportunity to put this new-found self-confidence to good use: having finished my doctorate, I now work as an editorial assistant on a research project within the university, and in September I’ll be taking up a post as Lecturer in Roman history at Durham. I am absolutely convinced that this would have been impossible without the opportunities and experience offered to me in Classics at Glasgow and without the close networks of support and advice created by my colleagues and research supervisors. The only thing I really dislike about Classics at Glasgow is the fact that I have to leave!