Primary tabs
The Faculty of Classics has been my wonderful home for the past four years — first as an MPhil student and now as a PhD candidate. While the Faculty is both large, rigorous and intellectually ambitious, it has also been exceptionally welcoming. I have benefited from the wonderful resources of the Faculty, such as the large and well-stocked in-house Classics library and generous travel funding for conferences and for visits to classical sites. But the best aspect of the Faculty is its people, both the senior academics, the support staff and the students who together make up a vibrant and tight-knit community. The graduate common room is typically crammed with lively conversation at breaktimes and the weekly research seminars in term-time are always followed by drinks and chats at the nearest pub. This strong community has been an excellent resource for mentorship, support and scholarly inspiration.
Sólveig Hilmarsdottir (Aug. 15, 2025)
With the Classics Faculty at Cambridge being committed to exploring the ramifications of Greco-Roman antiquity into the modern day, it is perhaps no surprise that my research interests have gravitated to the work of the now eminently popular Stoic philosopher, Seneca the Younger, and particularly in how ancient authors, like us moderns, engaged in interesting yet contentious ways with his work. In the broadest but most fundamental terms, what I hope to offer in my thesis is firmly grounded in the Faculty’s vision of Classics as a discipline: an attempt at understanding both the origins of and alternatives to prevailing modern conceptions of the ancient past through a rigorous study of that past.
Besides intellectually, the Faculty has greatly aided me on both financial and personal levels. It is by no means an overstatement to say that my PhD work would not be possible without the assistance afforded by Faculty funding; having lost my father towards the end of my M.Phil. (July 2019), the self-funding of three (or four) years’ worth of graduate study was simply not a feasible option.
But the Faculty did more than offer me practical help in that tremendously difficult time; they provided an open ear to my situation, gave considered advice on my options, and (after I had decided to finish the course) were forthcoming in extending my submission deadline; upon offering me a funded PhD place, they also facilitated the deferral of my course start-date (Oct.-Dec. 2019) so that I could take some much-needed time for myself and family. Needless to say, when I returned to Cambridge in January 2020, I knew I was coming to an immensely supportive – as well as intellectually stimulating – environment.
George Pliotis (May 17, 2021)
The Faculty of Classics is a wealth of impressive resources - an exceptional library, a steady stream of lectures and talks, generous funding for trips and conferences, regular exchanges with students from Paris, Lille, and Munich - but the greatest resource of all is the people. During my two years in the Faculty, first as an MPhil and now as a PhD student, I have benefited from an extraordinary system of mentorship, both by my own supervisor and by other senior members of the Faculty, who encourage me to take intellectual risks on the page and around the seminar table.
Solveig Gold (May 17, 2021)