Classics Department Student Learning Goals

Learning Goals for Majors and Minors in Classical Languages

• Advanced students should develop a knowledge of Greek or Latin or both sufficient to read ancient texts and analyze them critically.
• All language students should be able to use lexical information from the ancient languages as a source helping the student understand the cultures of the Greeks and Romans.
• All language students should expand their analytic abilities though use of the logic needed to read Greek and Latin.
• All language students should expand their English vocabulary through the study of words related to English in Greek and Latin.

Learning Goals for Classical Civilizations Majors and Minors

• Should attain a general knowledge of ancient Greek and Roman literature, history, art, politics and society.
• Should understand how Greek and Roman literature, history, art, politics and society are interrelated.
• Should develop research skills specific to analysis and understanding of ancient texts, ancient history and ancient art.
• Should develop sufficient literary-critical skills to analyze complex ancient texts.
• Should sharpen their awareness of ethics through exposure to Greek and Roman ethical systems, systems in large part alien to modern students' values.
• Should enlarge their understanding of contemporary global diversity by exposure to the cultural and ethnic diversity of ancient Greece and Rome, especially through extending classroom learning to extra-mural engagement with the Classical World that is embedded all around us -- with our buildings, parks, streets, museums, and forms of artistic expression throughout New York City.