CNES student spotlight: Mark Solomon

After years spent on a journey of self-discovery, Mark Solomon left his hometown of Seattle to pursue an undergraduate degree through the Department of Classical and Near Eastern Studies (CNES) at Binghamton University.

“Originally, I was pursuing music because I was in a band and there was a big music scene in Seattle,” said Solomon, a classics and philosophy double major. “All kinds of bands had come out of there, but it was Seattle in the late 1990s. That turned into strings of odd jobs and figuring things out. I took a gap decade.”

Now in his junior year, Solomon said his motivation to help people is what drove him to continue his education.

“I found that the level of input I could have in processes and in shaping the direction of the various social institutions I was involved in was restricted,” Solomon said. “I had a limited degree of being able to understand the culture and make change happen. I wanted to be able to do more.”

Following a “conversion experience” from 2012-2013, Solomon said his religion has provided strong guidance for his studies in the CNES Department.

“Classics, especially, is about being able to understand the cultural context and the Greek language,” Solomon said. “I’m a committed [Orthodox] Christian. If you want to read about the cultural context that they’re operating in, if you want to read about who are the big thinkers, who defined the boundaries and who are the movers, it’s all in Greek. It’s hard to get at otherwise.”

To gain more context of the ancient Orthodox Christian world, Solomon spent the summer of 2019 in Greece, as the recipient of the CNES Department’s Saul and Ruth Levin Educational Enrichment Grant. The focus of the grant is to fund “classics-focused educational experiences” for any undergraduate student majoring in one of the three classics tracks the University offers. Solomon used the grant to fund his education-abroad experience through a specific program called College Year in Athens.

“[Orthodox Christianity] is still the official religion in Greece,” Solomon said. “On one hand, I felt like I belonged. We share something deep and fundamental. We have the same traditions, but I’m also an American. In other ways, I can’t casually chat with people because I don’t speak modern Greek very well at all.”

Solomon was drawn to the program after seeing a flyer advertising a course that focused on the study of ancient Greek religion. He said his experience in Athens was enlightening and surreal, as he had never traveled outside of the country before.

“Academically, it just put a bow on everything,” Solomon said. “It tied together all the various sites that I’m learning about where you can understand that everything has a cohesive hold.”

Solomon said he had also learned a lot from the other Americans who were a part of the program.

“They came from different American backgrounds than I do,” Solomon said. “We were all able to work together to decide what our internal culture was going to be like. It was a great way to find out all the different reasons why someone would be interested [in the classics], talk to other people who study classics and other people who hadn’t, but were still really interested in the same time period.”

Once he receives his bachelor’s degree, Solomon hopes to earn a master’s in divinity and a doctorate in a more specialized version of the classics that is theologically oriented.

The CNES Department has continuously supported these educational goals, Solomon said.

“Everyone who works in the department is enthusiastic about what they do,” he said. “They have those vibrant personalities that add a focus and ability to master the material that I’m constantly in awe of. They are just fountains of knowledge.”

Solomon said he is continuing to adjust to life in Binghamton with his wife, who is also an undergraduate student at the University.

“I’m just getting to that point where I feel like I’ve hit my stride, but it’s intimidating,” he said. “There are a lot of people with great scholarly ideas here among professors, and the students are pretty sharp, too.”

Both Solomon and his wife chose to attend Binghamton University because it had programs that they were each interested in respectively, specifically CNES, medieval studies and art history.

“My wife and I both decided at the same time to go back to school and start living a more responsible lifestyle,” Solomon said. “The means became available, so it was time for us to go back to school.”

While going back to school has been difficult, Solomon said he would encourage anyone who was considering pursuing a higher education to do it.

“There’s a real function of education that has to do with improving yourself as a person and living your best life,” Solomon said. “A university is a really good means of doing that. If you want education, you have to go where it’s at.”