Written by Steph Strucaly |

If you’re one of those people who’s upset Morgan doesn’t provide any classes like architectural design, pottery, or art history, you should probably consider taking Humanities. The class includes all three of those and much more, including philosophy, classic literature, landscape drawing, and creative writing. If that hasn’t won you over yet, then the fact that Mr. Serenbetz teaches the class should make you want to sign up immediately. For most underclassmen, I’m sure you haven’t been privileged to get to know Mr. Serenbetz as well as some of the seniors have. He’s got what my humanities class this year likes to call sprezzatura, an art term meaning “done with effortless grace”, something you’ll be familiar with if you take the class. What my class means by that is that Mr. Serenbetz is a guy with so much talent, knowledge, and personality. He’s taught Humanities for years, and the amount of information he is able to share with the class is incredible. You will never go to a class without being awed by something he’s said. Don’t let his wisdom scare you though because he’s a funny guy who likes to have fun. A perk about taking the class is that you go on a handful of field trips: the opera in New Haven, the Yale Art Gallery, and the Fired Up pottery shop in Branford. The class entails a lot of thorough art analysis, so what better way to study art than to see it up close, like at the Guggenheim Museum in Manhattan? I will be honest; in Humanities, we do read a large variety of literature and write essays, responses, and creative pieces just like any other English class, but the subject matter is as close as you are going to get to a tour guide in Florence or Paris. Speaking of European cities, for those of you who already know you want to study abroad when you go to college, Mr. Serenbetz’s class is going to give you the upper hand in learning practically anything. As a disclaimer, you might even start to annoy your friends when you’re able to answer every question your tour guide gives you as you visit the Hagia Sophia in Istanbul or the Parthenon in Athens. Dillon Dwyer, a Morgan graduate and now freshman at UConn, agrees that thanks to Humanities, his present art history class is practically a review from Mr. Serenbetz’s curriculum last year. Without hesitation, I can truly say that Humanities has been one of the best classes I have taken at Morgan. No other class has improved my writing, taken me on unforgettable field trips, and turned me into a museum docent as much as humanities has.