����̽̽

When Allison Jodoin ’20 visited ����̽̽ on Admitted Student Visit Day, she struck up a conversation with ����̽̽ Professor of Classics Mark Usher.

“I had declared as an English major, and I told him I was looking for a program that really delves into the mechanics of language,” she remembers. “He convinced me that Latin was the best way to do that, and assured me that I’d have a chance to take Greek before I graduated. He was very right.”

Jodoin graduated as a triple major in Greek, Latin, and classical civilization, and accepted a fully-funded graduate school program at the University of Kansas.

She took advantage of a significant tuition break offered to ����̽̽ classics students who reside in Maine, Rhode Island, and Connecticut. A native of Rhode Island, Jodoin was eligible for partial funding from the .

As Usher had promised, Jodoin took Greek at ����̽̽, added a minor in writing, and worked as a peer tutor in for several years in the University Writing Center. She studied abroad in Greece and Italy while doing archaeological fieldwork, and developed an interest in the Roman epic which she developed into her senior honors thesis "Follow Your Dreams: an Analysis of Dream Classification Systems in Roman Epic."

Studying the classics, Jodoin says, taught her a lot about public speaking and presentation, skills that will be central to her career in academia.

“You read a lot of oratory in studying Latin and Greek, but you also get at the roots of language and how language works.”

"My interest in classics stems from mythology; I love the way humans create anthropomorphic figures to explain human emotions and behavior. By exploring outside our own frame of reference, we can gain an understanding of different ways of thinking about our own society and the issues that we care so much about. Ultimately, I study classics in an effort to be a more conscious and productive citizen of the world. Throughout my time at ����̽̽, I’ve taken some pretty incredible courses that have influenced my career path, namely Mythology, Ancient Egypt through the Ages, and Museum Anthropology. The courses were fascinating and fostered my love of the ancient world and its importance to modern society. The classics department as a whole also really impacted my time here. The professors are warm, funny, and incredibly knowledgeable and they are genuinely happy to talk to students about anything and are involved in many activities and events during and after school hours. They’ve written letters of recommendation on my behalf and the department awarded me a scholarship to help fund my archaeology field schools. The students are also really passionate and involved; you really feel like you’re part of a fun, nerdy family." - Ariadne Argyros '18

"In the 2018 spring semester, I served as a teaching assistant in a mythology course. This course was offered in a women’s prison as part of ����̽̽’s Liberal Arts in Prison Program, directed by prof. Kathy Fox. I wasn’t sure what to expect going in, but I thought I might gain teaching experience and I was glad to give back to the community. This became far more than a volunteer experience: I gained compassion for the incarcerated and their families, a new outlook on the classroom, and even increased familiarity with Greek and Latin mythology. We read foundational works of mythology, such as Hesiod’s Theogony, Homer’s Odyssey, and Ovid’s Metamorphoses, and students were held to the same standards as those on campus. Their passion for the course content inspired me to revisit the 'evidence' in the text after witnessing some of the students’ many debates over the character of Odysseus. Seeing these women continue their education and critically engage with primary and secondary source materials, even under the constraints of the prison environment, reinforced the value of opening the broader academic conversation to new minds and voices. Learning does not need to be confined to the traditional lecture hall, and studying classics has lasting value academically, personally, and professionally that applies beyond the bounds of a four-year undergraduate career." - Tessie Sakai '18

"I joined the United States Marine Corps immediately after high school and served there for six years. Towards the end of my tour, during a particularly trying time in my life, I came across an English translation of Vergil’s Aeneid. In the beginning, the hero Aeneas, exhausted and shipwrecked, addresses his comrades with the following words: 'Perhaps one day it will help you, to remember even these things.' In class a few years later, I had the opportunity to read this great epic, and that same line, in the original Latin: Forsan et haec olim meminisse iuvabit. This line has become one of my favorites, and it’s one that has helped me often since my initial reading. I think that at some point, we have all found ourselves at a loss when trying to express something personal, a powerful feeling or experience that seems to be beyond words. The classics, whether it is the epics of Homer and Vergil, the tragedies of Sophocles, the letters of Pliny, or the history of Thucydides, have always been there to express that which appears incomprehensible. This is one reason why I study classics, and it’s why the Ancient Greeks and Romans will always be pertinent to our daily lives." - Ryan Dupuis '19

"Studying classics allows you to look back in time and see how the world was viewed--not only by the people who wrote the stories but by those who enjoyed them. Depending on the classical field you find interesting, you can find out how your god or god acted. You can see how your ancestors interacted with each other, and with the world around them. As a student veteran on campus, I not only used the classics…but I used it to connect with other veterans at ����̽̽, but I use it to connect to other veterans and their experiences throughout time." - Thomas Moore '19