When I was in college, I was often asked what I planned to do with my degree in classics. No career counselor had suggested that studying classics is preparation to move to China, and that living China is preparation for game development, so I would have trouble answering this question.
I’ve started to do some work for National Geographic, on the new World of Secrets Facebook game. Part of this job involves reading news about classical archaeology to determine the most awesome ones, and another part involves playing the game lots and lots, and writing. Playing games, writing, and reading interesting nerd things are pretty much my skill set.
And now I know that the answer to “What do you do with a degree in Classics?” is “Worry that game characters will damage fictional artifacts with their fictional camera flashes.”
Related: Classics skills in game development, Iris interview about classics in game dev, even using classics skills in retail.
I <3 you so very very much!
🙂 I thought about you when I was writing this! Classics is a perfect grounding for work in tech!
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Congrats on finding an answer to the question that does not involve “more school” or “seminary.” 🙂
A lot of my friends and colleagues giggled at my choice of second major in classics, but none of them questioned its value. They did question the value (both educational and career-wise) of a math major. The sheer “in your face” of being a woman and so good at math is nice when one encounters people like Larry Summers, but mastering Liouville’s Theorem never did much for my career. Or anything for my career, gonna be honest here.
Ah, but classics -philosophy, government, literature, language, and history, all in one cohesive package! How could that not come in handy one day, even if you aren’t Indiana Jones?