Career Opportunities

UMass undergraduates find Classics to be a stimulating and unique program. We have an excellent student-faculty ratio and particularly strong advising, so our students often find that they receive more personal attention from faculty than students in other departments do. Classics also offers many opportunities for study and excavation abroad in Greece, Italy, and other countries. 

As preparation for professional life and career opportunities, Classics is more useful than many people realize: prospective graduate programs and employers know that students with Classics degrees are highly self-motivated and on average have much better analytical and verbal skills than other applicants. The success of our alumni demonstrates that Classics is excellent preparation for a wide range of occupations or professions, including business, government, law, politics, management, computing, publishing, seminary, medicine, and teaching. The study of Classics is especially valuable for vocations requiring refined analytical and verbal skills. The major also prepares students for graduate work in all areas of classical studies, including language and literature, art and archaeology, ancient history, and museum studies.

The department also offers an M.A.T. program in Latin and Classical Humanities to prepare and mentor students who wish to teach Latin at the secondary school level. Because teaching at the middle and high school levels in public schools requires a teaching certificate, prospective teachers of Latin should concentrate their studies on the Greek and Latin languages and continue their studies at the Master’s level, either here at the University or elsewhere, in Latin and Classical Humanities. The Commonwealth of Massachusetts does not grant teaching certificates without an M.A. degree or its equivalent.