Benjamin Peng is a Trinity senior graduating in 2025 with a double major in Classical Studies and Computer Science. We asked him to tell us a little bit about his experience, and about the unexpected benefits of graduating with these two very different majors.
Were you always interested in Classical Studies?
I came into Duke with no experience with Latin and no experience with the classics more broadly, but I've come to really appreciate the four years I've spent studying Latin, and I can honestly say that it's probably the best academic decision I made at Duke.
Why is that?
Firstly, there's a lot of carry over and a lot of crossovers between the kind of thinking that is required of you in STEM classes, engineering classes, science classes, and the kind of thinking required when you're studying or translating Greek or Latin. These languages are very analytical, very grammar and syntax heavy, and require you to have a good mind for parsing and interpreting what are relatively complex texts. And that's exactly the kind of skill set that I personally use when I am writing code as a software engineer, for example.
Conversely, if you are the kind of person who's interested in STEM because of that sort of analytical mode of thinking, you will find, in my opinion, Latin and Greek are probably easier for you than a lot of the other languages which are taught here at Duke.
On top of that, I've also found the classical humanitarian education which I've received from my classics major enlightened my worldview — generally speaking, you don't really get a lot of philosophy and poetry and literature as a STEM major.
How did you combine the requirements of such different fields?
My Classics major made it very easy for me to graduate on time. It fulfilled a lot of Trinity’s humanities requirements — which your STEM classes might not cover — so I've been able to graduate without really thinking about class selection, just getting both my majors done. That's an experience I can say not a lot of my friends have had.
What advice would you give to a student who is hesitant to dive into Classical Studies?
If you're thinking about taking a Latin, Greek or classics course, even if you don't have any experience from before college, like I didn't, I would really recommend at least giving it a shot and seeing how you like it. It was probably the best decision I've made in terms of choosing what I'm going to study here at Duke.
I really hope that if you have the desire to give it a try, that you'll find that your experience is similar to mine.
