Economics/Greek

Economics and Greek is an unusual and intellectually ambitious combination, bringing together the rigorous analytical discipline of economics with the study of classical Greek language, literature and culture. Economics provides frameworks for understanding how individuals, markets and economies function under conditions of scarcity and uncertainty, from microeconomic decision-making to macroeconomic policy. Greek opens access to one of the greatest literary, philosophical and historical traditions in the Western intellectual canon, requiring the careful linguistic work of learning to read texts in the original language.

At the University of Glasgow, this part-time programme includes a year abroad, giving you the opportunity to engage with different scholarly traditions in economics and classical studies in another academic environment. You will read Homer and other Greek poets, Athenian tragedy and comedy, orators, historians and philosophers including Plato, gaining both the linguistic skills to engage with these texts directly and the historical and cultural knowledge to understand them in their context. The economics strand develops your quantitative and analytical skills alongside the theoretical frameworks needed to understand markets, institutions and policy.

The combination develops two very different but complementary kinds of intellectual discipline: the formal modelling and data analysis of economics alongside the interpretive, linguistic and historical work of Greek studies. Both reward patience, rigour and attention to detail, and both develop the capacity for careful, evidence-based reasoning.

Graduates go on to careers in economic research, finance, the civil service, public policy, education, the cultural sector, journalism and international organisations. The combination of economic analytical skills and classical training is unusual and can be genuinely distinctive in a competitive graduate market. Many go on to postgraduate study in economics, classical studies, philosophy, history or related disciplines.