Hello everyone, I’m sorry that I haven’t written much the past few months. I have been seriously rethinking my career plans ever since I did not get into a PhD program last year and have been doing so even more since I learned that I will not be admitted to a classics PhD program with funding this year either. For at least a decade now, I’ve known that it was extraordinarily unlikely that I would ever land a tenure-track professorship in ancient history, but I was just so stubbornly, stupidly committed to it that I was unwilling to give it up and pursue an actually realistically viable career path.
At this point, though, my thinking has changed. I’ve realized that I can’t keep wasting my life on something that has virtually no chance of ever turning into a stable living. The odds of landing long-term employment as an academic ancient historian are so low and so random that pursuing a PhD with that goal is like betting one’s future prospects of employability on rolling sixes on a die six times in a row. Under normal circumstances, we wouldn’t call that a career plan; we’d call it a gambling addiction.
Instead of going into a PhD program, I’ve decided to go to law school and become a lawyer. This was not an easy decision to make. Before I made it, I spoke to a professional career counselor, I reached out to three different practicing attorneys who work in different areas of law and a current law student at IU Bloomington, all of whom very generously agreed to speak to me, and had long conservations with them about what law school and legal practice are like. I did a lot of reading and research on my own, I had many conversations with my parents, and I spent many weeks thinking it over.
The truth is that I’ve been interested in the law for a long time and it is a career that is well suited to my skills and interests. Even back when I was in high school, my father and several of my teachers encouraged me to become a lawyer, but, at the time, I just couldn’t see myself as one, mostly because I was already certain that I wanted to be an ancient history professor.
I made the decision to apply to law school in April of this year. By that time, the deadlines for this year for most programs were already passed and the next offering of the LSAT was not until June 7th (after even the latest of all the deadlines), but I managed to find a way around this, since the IU Bloomington Maurer School of Law has recently started accepting the GRE as a substitute for the LSAT and had a late application deadline this year of June 1st. As it happens, I took the GRE one time without studying four years ago when I was preparing to apply to PhD programs the first time and got a perfect score (170 out of 170, 99th percentile) on the verbal reasoning section. My scores are still valid, so I sent them in and submitted my application to Maurer in May. On Thursday of last week, I received official notice that I have been admitted and that I have also received a merit-based scholarship covering part of the tuition for the program. I have now accepted my offer of admission and signed a lease for an apartment in Bloomington. Orientation is on August 13th.
As one can imagine, I am both excited and anxious about going to law school. I know that many of the skills I have honed through my many years of historical study will be transferable and I hope to do well. I am also, however, keenly aware that law is a very different field from ancient history in many ways and there is every possibility that I will not fare as well as I hope. After all, no one goes to law school with the expectation of being in the bottom half of the class, but half of every class must always be at the bottom. Still, I am dedicated and I intend to do as well as I possibly can.
Although my plans for the area of law in which I wish to practice remain flexible, I am attracted to work in public-interest litigation for a nonprofit organization that would help to advance the rights of marginalized communities and vulnerable individuals.
I do intend to continue posting on this blog occasionally and working on my novel Mother of the Gods, but both of these are, for better or worse, going to have to take a back seat. I can’t realistically expect this blog or my novel ever to provide enough income for me to live on, especially in this age in which AI-generated content increasingly crowds out human-created content online, so, by necessity, I am going to have to reserve writing for what little spare time I may have going forward.
This blog is still my only source of income. I managed to get through both my bachelor’s degree and my master’s degree without having to take out any student loans, but, unfortunately, I will have to take out massive loans to pay for my JD. I am nervous about how much debt I am going to have to take on, especially since it is far from guaranteed that earning a law degree will necessarily lead to a better personal outcome than those available to me right now. Even so, life is full of risks and the odds of this turning out favorably are certainly far better than the odds of landing a position as a tenure-track professor in classics with a PhD.
OK, wow, a liar. Oops, lawyer!
You’re really good at portraying Classics to a modern audience so I hope you have time to keep at it. I read you religiously (committed to Zeus) though I rarely comment.
There certainly is great need for lawyers, even in this period where law and its basis is being ignored. Frankly, I hope this period has passed by the time you’re a lawyer!
Best of luck,
CJ Hinke
Thammasat University
Bangkok
Thanks for the encouraging words!
I will say that I am strongly committed to honesty and, if I do become a lawyer, I would hope to be one of the honest ones—more of the Atticus Finch variety than the Saul Goodman variety. One of my hesitations about pursuing this career path was actually my fear that it would require me to compromise my integrity.
A law degree is three years, so, since I’m starting this year, I should expect to graduate in May 2028, by which point Trump will either have died in office of old age or will be nearing the end of his second term and constitutionally barred from pursuing reelection (regardless of his repeated stated intention to run for a third term).
This is wonderful news.
You have always shown yourself to be analytical, precise, politically aware and compassionate – and now with concrete plans to expand your universe you will do well, I’m sure.
Your writing and passion for history will become enriching hobbies, distractions and opportunities for escapism. There is something freeing when these are returned to and taken up for pleasure.
I can only imagine how scary it is to take on such debt. Self-investment is worth it though. The world needs people like you.
Thank you so much for the kind words. I will say that, as anxious as I am, I am more optimistic concerning my own future prospects now than I have been in at least six years.
I do hope that I will be able to continue studying ancient history and writing this blog in my spare time (although I recognize that, if I have any spare time at all, I definitely won’t have much, given how busy I expect to be).
I certainly understand your difficult decision, which was probably somewhat of a relief. I hope you can dive back into your ancient history passions at times, here on this blog even. Life surprises us many times as we navigate down one path or another through the years. You’re finding your way, that’s all that counts . We enjoy your writings and hope you will find time to continue to share them with us.
Thank you very much for the kind words.
As I said in my reply to Jill’s comment above, although I am anxious, I am more optimistic concerning my own future prospects now than I have been in at least six years. The most likely outcome of me attending law school is that I will at least have a stable, middle-class job and be no longer dependent on my parents by the time I turn twenty-nine, which most likely would not be the case if I had gone into a classics PhD program this year.
Life is definitely surprising. Going into law was not what I envisioned for myself for most of my life, but, after careful research and consideration, at this point, I think it makes the most sense. It’s definitely a sounder career decision, I think, than going into a classics PhD would have been.
I do still hope to continue studying and writing about the ancient world in what little spare time I may have going forward.
Best of luck in your new career, just like Cicero and Salvius Julianus.
“I am attracted to work in public-interest litigation for a nonprofit organization that would help to advance the rights of marginalized communities and vulnerable individuals.”
Good cause!
Indeed! In my personal statement for my application, I actually wrote about Lysias 24 (“On the Suspension of a Disability Benefit”) as both an example of how the ancient world remains relevant to present-day law and as embodying the spirit of the kind of legal work that I hope to pursue.
Every good wish for your ‘day job’ studies. I hope you can keep up your “hobby” work and communications!
Thanks! I hope so too.
Congratulations, and best of luck! Law school (in my experience) has a fair number of classics majors / classics-interested people. Your writing has always been excellent and I’m sure you’ll do great!
Spencer, this is a brave and obviously well-thought-out decision. These days lawyers, courts, and the law itself are under attack, but they may be the last bastion of democracy and decency. And I think you’ll be in good company, not only among lawyers dedicated to your causes, but among many who are fascinated by Greek and Roman material and well-versed in it.
I hope you’ll be able to keep us informed about your progress and what you’re learning.
Falling down is not failure. Failure comes when you stay where you have fallen.—- Socrates
Aristotle: “At his best, man is the noblest of all animals; separated from law and justice, he is the worst.”
Perfer et obdura; dolor hic tibi proderit olim
Teaching may still be in your future, even if you manage a career in the law. One of my very best students in a night class in chemistry was a lawyer who had made his pile and wanted to pursue his first love, being a high school science teacher.
As always I wish you the best and hope that you keep writing as you have. You probably have enough content for a book at this point and I suggest you do that, even if only to pad your resume.
I don’t think I really want to teach high school students. I really enjoyed the opportunities I had to teach when I was a course assistant at Brandeis, but teaching undergraduate students at a university like Brandeis is very different from teaching high school students. I enjoyed teaching there mainly because I was passionate about the subject I was teaching and I was teaching very bright, engaged students who were also interested in the subject. I was only really looking for high school teaching jobs because I felt it was the only thing for which I was likely to be hired.
That being said, I am open to the idea of becoming a law professor eventually, although I recognize that this would only be possible after several years of legal practice and I am also aware that I would be an unlikely candidate, since law academia, like classics academia, is extremely pedigree-oriented and the Maurer School of Law is only ranked forty-sixth in the country, meaning a graduate of the program is very unlikely to be hired in legal academia.
I hope that you do not feel that the decade you spent pursuing the Classics was “wasted” or “stupid.” You’ve had amazing experiences and your writing has touched the lives of many people. I know many people who change careers such as going to law school even later in life than you are (my middle school gym teacher became a lawyer in her forties!). It is vital that people become lawyers from different perspectives and backgrounds, and the emotional maturity of late twenties will make a graduate or professional degree much easier than the emotional volatility of early twenties (trust me as someone who pursued a PhD in her late twenties and I’m glad I did). Everything you’ve done up to now will help you.
Have you investigated poverty law as a field? “public-interest litigation for a nonprofit organization that would help to advance the rights of marginalized communities and vulnerable individuals” sounds like it would fit well with poverty law. I’ve talked to a former poverty lawyer (she is now an Episcopalian priest; she heard a vocation that could not be denied).
To clarify what I’ve said above, I don’t regret studying classics and history in undergrad at all. My personal feelings about my master’s degree and my years spent applying to PhD programs, on the other hand, are mixed. On the one hand, I learned many things in my master’s program that I find personally valuable and that I am sincerely glad I have learned, I had experiences that have deeply shaped me as a person, I am proud of the research I did while I was in the program, and I am generally glad to have met the people whom I met through the program—including both professors and students alike. I definitely matured significantly while I was in the program. I think I am a significantly more emotionally mature and certainly less naïve person than I was three years ago. I doubt that I would have been mentally and emotionally mature enough for law school three years ago when I was twenty-three, but I think I am now as I am about to turn twenty-six. I certainly agree that what I’ve learned over the past three years will help me going forward.
At the end of the day, though, the main reason why I went into the master’s program in the first place was because I thought it would put me in a better position to get into a PhD program in classics or ancient history, so that I could hopefully one day become a professor. What I’ve found, though, is that the MA doesn’t seem to have helped very much, if at all, in terms of getting into a PhD program or in terms of finding employment outside academia afterwards. As grateful as I am for what I learned in the program, I have to recognize the fact that it would have been a much better professional decision for me to have never gone into it at all.
If I could go back in time knowing what I do now, I might still decide to pursue an MA in classics, but I do at the very least wish that I had been smarter about how I did it and that I had at least gotten into a fully funded program.
Congratulations!!
Thank you!
You are an extraordinarily dedicated and conscientious student, Spencer.
(I speak with 35 years of tertiary-level teaching behind me.)
=As long as you remain enthusiastic and committed, you will ace your law degree!
Congratulations on being accepted for law school!
Thanks!
Good luck! I can relate a bit to your position, as one who is myself entering a more ‘useful’ profession (archivist) than the kind of academic or creative pursuits I would most desire to do.
Do you think you will publish anything academical in Classics, even if you will no longer study/work in the field?
I notice that you will also now be back in your home state again. I guess living closer to your family might be an advantage as well?
As a non-American, I needed to look up what GRE and LSAT means.
I myself looked into becoming an archivist as a possibility before deciding to apply to law school.
I don’t know if I will ever publish any academic papers in classics. It is possible that I may, but I suspect I probably won’t have time.
Yes, I am planning to stay in Indiana. As much as I like Massachusetts better than Indiana in certain ways, I have realized that I want to be able to see my family more often and spend holidays with them, which means staying closer to home. My hope is that I will end up working in Indianapolis.
I apologize for not clarifying what the LSAT and GRE are.
Miss Spencer,
First off, congratulations on your acceptance to law school. GRE perfect scores are very impressive, and your knowledge and outreach show you are an incredible student and candidate.
My heart worries for you in these times, with the recent announcements of cutbacks from Indiana University, as well as the perceived lack of tolerance in that state. Perhaps with Bloomington being a college town you will be in a good place surrounded by love and support.
Congratulations again, and best wishes. You’ve proven you can succeed.
Thank you for the encouraging words.
Yes, it deeply saddens me to see that IU Bloomington will be eliminating the vast majority of its humanities and social science undergraduate majors and graduate programs, including its undergraduate majors in (among other fields) classical studies, English language and literature, comparative literature, philosophy, religious studies, folklore studies, art history, Middle Eastern Studies, Germanic languages and literatures, French language and literature, Italian language and literature, Portuguese language and literature, Slavic languages and literatures, American studies, African American studies, South Asian studies, East Asian studies, geography, anthropology, sociology, clinical and applied psychology, cognitive science, atmospheric sciences and meteorology, astronomy, and geology. That being said, I will not be personally directly affected by these cuts, since I have already graduated with my degree in history and classics from IU, and the law school where I am about to begin studies is not in any immediate danger of being cut.
It is absolutely true that Indiana is a very conservative state and, in many ways, I liked living in Massachusetts better than Indiana. That being said, Bloomington is a fairly liberal city (by Indiana’s standards) and I’ve realized that I want to stay in Indiana to be close to my family. One of the worst parts of living in Massachusetts was only being able to see my parents and sister when I came home for winter or summer break and not being able to spend most holidays with them. My plan for after I graduate is hopefully to live in Indianapolis so that I can still get together with my family regularly.
Well done. The law business will be lucky to have your wisdom and skills.
Just don’t forget your love of the classical world. You have much to add there too.
Cita stelzer
If you’re willing to say, why did you delete your last article about what Americans think of the bubonic plague and the war in Iran?
Anyway, maybe you could tell us about your cases on this blog if you get the chance. Good luck.
Thanks!
The reason why I deleted my last post is because I felt that the post was rushed and did not address the subject with the nuance and sincerity that it warranted. I do, however, still strongly believe that the Trump administration’s recent bombing of Iranian nuclear sites (which we now know was not even effective in its ostensible goal of destroying Iran’s stores of enriched uranium) was a gross strategic miscalculation and a most likely illegal usurpation of Congressional authority. I am also still strongly opposed to the United States’ direct involvement in yet another war against a Middle Eastern country.
If you end up as a lawyer, even if (as you mention in a reply above) you don’t end up writing any academic papers on the ancient world, might we see your name on court proceedings, law papers, or anything like that?
Most likely yes, in some fashion.
Also, as I said, I am still planning to finish and publish my novel, although I don’t know when it will be published. I was hoping to finish it before the end of this year, but it still isn’t done yet and I haven’t made much progress on it in the past couple of months.
Congratulations, Spencer! My son was a Classics major in college, while planning on law school after college. Supposedly Classics majors score the highest the LSATs. As a single Dad of a trans daughter, I’m especially happy to hear of your focus on marginalized clients. I wish you well in all your endeavors!
Thanks! As I said above, I used my GRE scores from 2021 instead of taking the LSAT because I applied so late that there weren’t any LSAT test dates available before the deadline, but it worked out fine in the end. Honestly, despite my very good GRE score, I was a little surprised that I got in, considering how late I applied.
You have done the right think.
Academia will only continue to shrink, and it is exactly the areas that cannot be pursued other than in an academy that will be hit hardest. If you gotten a tenured position, it would have been in jeopardy as long as it happened to last. That is an “if” in the Spartan sense.
As far as the law goes, the only reason it has ever done anyone outside the ruling class any good, has been because there are those that have entered it determined to exceed the moral average of that profession. You have that resolve and a capacity to discover and elucidate a certain kind of precise detail that adds the possibility of victory to the determination to take the right side.
You can do an awful lot of good with your chosen path–and we will need every hand on deck in the coming years.
The other things you have passion in will still be available–maybe not as a profession for anybody–but you will be able to return to them in a stable and secure position to take what real possibilities there are. These have withstood millennia of trouble so far…and there may be a reason for that. We’ll see.
Absolutely. The fact that classics academia is dying is abundantly clear in the fact that both of the classics degree programs I have been in are now being eliminated. It was just reported a couple of weeks ago that IU Bloomington will be eliminating all of its classics degree programs, including both their graduate degree programs and their undergraduate major programs as part of a university-wide restructuring to comply with a new state law mandating that public universities eliminate all degree programs below a specified enrollment threshold. Meanwhile, Brandeis University is most likely eliminating their classics master’s program along with a host of other graduate programs as part of a university-wide restructuring; they are keeping their undergraduate classics program for now at least, but, in the long-term, that may be in danger as well. I doubt that classics or ancient history will exist as a field of study in the United States in ten years outside the Ivy League.
Just what we need here in the USA, another lawyer! Why not become a high school teacher like you were contemplating earlier? A lot more fulfilling thing to do!
The reality is that I don’t think I really want to be a high school teacher. I’ve spoken to a lot of high school teachers, including some who were my own teachers when I was in high school and people whom I met during my MA program who either had previously worked as or have subsequently become high school teachers. All of my own former high school teachers with whom I have spoken have advised me in some way another to stay away from high school teaching because, in their assessment, having spent decades or even whole careers as high school teachers, the work is largely unfulfilling, often miserable, poorly compensated, and widely looked down upon.
Moreover, I have been advised that, if one does become a high school teacher, one should do it specifically because one enjoys working with teenagers, not because one is passionate about the subject one is teaching, since the actual subject matter is a very small fraction of the job. The main reason why I previously considered being a high school teacher is mostly because I felt it was the job for which I had the most realistic chance of being hired, considering my academic background.
I considered a range of other career possibilities, but most of them are simply not in demand or realistically viable. The truth is that we human beings have remarkably little control over what we do with our lives on this earth. We have to do whatever is economically in demand to make a living, even if it is not what we would choose for ourselves if we had absolutely free choice. That is simply how the world is.
I can’t speak for teaching ancient history as such, but when I got my master’s in theology, I was basically blackballed by all Catholic high schools in my diocese because I actually knew the Bible! I insisted on designing my own syllabus, complete with Biblical Hebrew and Koine Greek, form criticism, textual criticism, etc. The HR manager who, I’m guessing, wasn’t used to dealing with an actual “subject matter expert” was bewildered and long story short, I actively discourage everyone with an actual degree in X subject to never, ever apply to teach at a Catholic school, high school or otherwise. For one thing, the pay is insulting, even by teaching standards. For schools that charge tens of thousands (one in LA charges almost 18k a year!!), the salary of most teachers, regardless of subject, is beyond offensive. You won’t be allowed to actually teach these kids the subject you’re an expert in, and will be expected to physically grab their cell phones, putting yourself and them in danger in the process (Mike DeWine and lawmakers apparently weren’t satisfied with how dangerous teaching in high schools can be so they made things worse).
With that said, people who could otherwise be the best teachers ever often switch to CS, law, etc.
Congratulations on your decision. It is hard to decide. Anyway, we can decide that one day and then change the other day. I changed career in my life and I am happy. Life as you say is full of risks. I wish you sucess and I hope you continue posting about myths, ancient history because I learn. TY.
Congratulations, and commiserations! Bittersweet, but it’s good to have a plan, and goodness knows we need good people fighting for marginalised groups.
Thanks! I’m glad to have a plan for moving forward. I’ve felt stuck and trapped for most of the past year and it is good to have a clear idea of where I am heading. I just hope that this works out and that it doesn’t turn out to be a terrible mistake.
Sadly it looks like the world will need many lawyers to advocate for unjustly targeted people. So good on you for signing up to fight the good fight!
Oh wow, I genuinely didn’t expect this at all; what an upset.
It’s a shame that you didn’t get accepted into the PhD program as a professional classics scholar, but with how well thought-out your plan is, and with how badly the new administration is going to further pulverize higher education with all the stripping of funds and programs, packed with the extra whammy of the “Big Beautiful Bill” increasing tuition prices further… I think you’ve made the right choice.
Best of luck to you and your journey as an aspiring lawyer. Since modern law is so tied to classic precedent in Roman law, I’m sure your classics will come in handy! As an avid reader of this blog, all I can do is stand in solidarity with your efforts to defend the marginalized.
I’ll just end this the same way the previous comment has: keep up the good fight!
Best of luck in your new career! I am sure you will make a great lawyer!
Thanks! I certainly hope so. It is a very big change for me, but I hope that it will work out.
I briefly attended law school before going on to get a master’s in theology. My BA is in philosophy and I was the past president of the BGSU Philosophy Club. I attended law school in Illinois (NIU). I’m sure you’ve heard better advice than what I am about to (unrequested I know!) give you: 1. Canned cases are your new bibles. Some professors might insist on briefing your own cases instead of using the volumes given to you on your first day (or during orientation). They will almost certainly never enforce that, and it can take between 30min-a couple hours to brief a case, depending on which one it is. So, use the free canned cases and Westlaw. 2. Civil Procedure and Torts were the hardest for me. Criminal Law is a lot like applied ethics in philosophy. 3. I found contract law surprisingly interesting and there’s more resources online for that than most other classes. 4. If you’re asked to sub in for Moot Court or Mock Trial, def. do it. It looks good on a CV and you’ll impress 3Ls. Basic Legal Research class is easy af. It’s almost impossible for anyone to fail that class, since it’s undergrad level material. Lastly, all 1Ls, whether at U Toledo, Harvard, NIU, or Yale, study the exact same cases. It’s not until second half of 2L that there’s more variation due to electives, etc. Also, there’s been cases where Harvard educated attorneys lost in court against those who went to “lower tier” law schools.
Best of luck!
Bill
Spencer, here’s an interesting question I have. As you explain in your FAQ, the dating system counting from what was thought to be Jesus’s birth year (but probably actually wasn’t) probably isn’t going anywhere, but the best we can do is avoid the Christian declarations of faith, thus using BCE/CE instead of BC/AD. But hypothetically, what would your ideal dating system would be based on?
That’s a really interesting question Ethan! Maybe we could make year 1 the date of the oldest written document, since writing is what divides history from pre-history? (Just my two cents…I’m sure others have other benchmarks).
If I could completely redo the western dating system, I might choose something like the Holocene Calendar, which begins with the year 10,000 BCE (roughly the beginning of the Holocene Epoch), since it begins with a universally relevant date and sets the beginning of the dating system far enough back in time that all historical dates will be positive, rather than negative, numbers.
Alternatively, I might pick a system like the Anno Mundi dating system used for the Hebrew calendar, which begins with the year 3761 BCE, which is traditionally identified as the date of God’s creation of the world, but actually corresponds roughly to the beginning of recorded human history, for the same reasons as above.
Good for you, Spencer!
You’re good at argument even when your positions are weak.
While I’m not sure you’re the insufferable type A person who commonly becomes a lawyer, I think you’ll hold your own.
Thanks, I appreciate the complement. To be fair, though, I definitely have some Type A personality traits and, to be perfectly honest, I find myself pretty insufferable at times, so I may fit in better than you think (whether that’s a good thing or a bad thing).
Good luck!
Thanks! I really hope that this works out for me. Part of me still worries that this may be a mistake, but I think that may just be my tendency to overthink things.
Out of gratitude for the pleasure and knowledge I’ve gathered from reading your blog, I can’t help but cheer you on as you enter a new field of study.
Thanks! I’m always very glad to hear that you’ve both enjoyed and learned from my blog over the years. I plan to continue writing the blog for fun (when I am able to do so). I don’t know how frequently I will be able to post in the coming years, but I do not plan on quitting altogether.