LOTC Reflection: Classics Day at College of Charleston

At University School of the Lowcountry, our students study Latin as part of our Global Languages program. We provide them the opportunity to attend the annual Classics Day, hosted by College of Charleston. It gives them an opportunity to explore the Latin language in a new environment and experience life on a college campus as well.

USL 12th grader Bridget Conway shares:

“I eagerly took up the opportunity to attend Classics Day at the College of Charleston when my Latin teacher announced it to the student body. A few middle school students and I enjoyed the full-day event, attending lectures including “An Empire of the Mind: The Egypt of Ptolemy I,” “The World’s First Alphabet: The Invention of Writing in Ancient Greece,” “What You Can Do with a Classics Major,” and “From the Arena to the Circus to the Stars: Screening Epic Heroes in the 21st Century.” Additionally, a student attending the College spoke about the armor and weaponry of the ancient Romans while dressed, with historic accuracy, as a Roman soldier. I particularly enjoyed the first lecture about Ptolemy I, as it wonderfully balanced a review of concepts I learned in seventh grade Ancient History, and new information I found fascinating.

The day was informative not only because of what I learned, but also because of its setting on a college campus. As a high school senior, I found spending the day in a real college setting – traveling from building to building, observing real lecture given by professors, and being with college-aged students – extremely valuable. I will remember the day as I begin my college career next fall.”

USL student Matthew Horan shares:

“Hunter, Bridget, Dylan, and I all went to the Classics Day event at C of C. We split into different groups: Dylan, Mrs. Brockman, and I went to “The Legacy of Greek and Roman slavery”, which was being taught by Dr. Flores, where he talked about the similarities and differences between modern-day slavery and slavery in Greek and Roman times. This was my personal favorite out of the three classes, because I found it really interesting the way he taught. First, he asked the class to list all the good things the Roman’s made, and then he asked us about the bad things they helped create, such as slavery. Our second class was “The glass lab”, which was being taught by Dr. Sterrett-Krause, and that class talked about how things were made during Roman times compared to how it’s made now. We also got the chance to guess what pieces of glass came off of, and what they could have been used for during that time period. Our third and final class was “From the Arena to the Circus to the Stars: Screening Epic Heroes in the 21st Century”, which was being taught by Dr. Gardner. This class talked about how Romans, and Greeks, had been depicted in movies. We watched movie clips for how they were displayed from the last 17 years. Of course, over the entirety of this optional LOTC, I made links to my almost 3 years of learning Latin, including Mrs. Elmore-Williams’s Mythology lessons.”