Latin: The Language That Solved Me by Rebecca

Latin: The Language That Solved Me by Rebecca - January 2025 Scholarship Essay

The first day of Latin class, I sat stiffly at my desk, staring at the words etched on the whiteboard: Gallia est omnis divisa in partes tres. Gallia. Divided. Three parts. My brain automatically searched for patterns, for rules to cling to, but all I found was frustration.

It didn’t make sense. Latin didn’t behave like the numbers and formulas I had trusted my whole life. It didn’t offer absolutes. Instead, its grammar twisted, its words shape-shifted, its meanings refused to be boxed in. I hated it.

Science had always felt like home to me—predictable, logical, solvable. Experiments might fail, but only because I hadn’t tried hard enough. Math problems might stump me, but the solution was always there, waiting to be uncovered. Latin, on the other hand, was slippery and stubborn. It mocked my attempts to confine it.

“Latin isn’t about perfection,” Magistra Kell said one day, watching me labor over a single sentence like I was trying to crack a code. Her voice was calm but firm, her presence steady, like a lighthouse cutting through the storm of my frustration. “It’s about understanding. Let it speak to you.”

Her words baffled me. Let it speak to me? I didn’t know what that meant.

Magistra Kell stood at the front of the room, her hands moving like she was conducting a silent orchestra as she translated a passage from the Aeneid. Her voice swelled and softened with each line, weaving a tale of gods and mortals, of duty and despair. The classroom fell silent, save for her words.

I watched her, mesmerized, as if she were casting a spell. Her eyes flickered with fire when Aeneas defied the gods, softened with sorrow when he left Dido behind. She didn’t just know the words; she lived them.

For the first time, I wondered if there was something here I wasn’t seeing—something more than grammar charts and declensions.

One afternoon, Magistra Kell handed us a line from Virgil: forsan et haec olim meminisse juvabit. Perhaps someday, it will bring us joy to remember even these things.

I hesitated, my pen hovering over the paper. The line was simple, but it didn’t feel simple. I wanted to crack it open, to make it fit into some neat, logical meaning. Instead, I heard Magistra Kell’s voice in my mind: Let it speak to you.

I closed my eyes and let the words wash over me. I thought of Aeneas, carrying the weight of Troy on his shoulders. I thought of myself, stuck in a battle of my own making, trying to bend Latin to my will. I thought of how life—mine, his, anyone’s—was full of moments we couldn’t control, of decisions that wouldn’t make sense until long after we made them.

“It’s not about what it says,” Magistra Kell said, breaking my thoughts. She was standing beside me now, her tone quiet, almost reverent. “It’s about what it means. To you. Right now.”

I looked down at the text again, and for the first time, I didn’t see an equation to solve. I saw a story. I saw humanity.

Latin became something else for me after that moment. I stopped treating it like a puzzle and started treating it like a canvas. I let myself be messy, imprecise. I let myself feel the lines before I translated them. And I began to see beauty not just in the polished answers but in the struggle to understand.

Magistra Kell didn’t just teach me a language. She showed me how to live outside the walls I had built for myself.

For years, I had told myself I was a scientist, nothing more. I believed the world could be mapped, measured, and mastered. But Latin unraveled that belief. It taught me that some things—the most important things—are too vast for boundaries.

Now, when I look at my future in STEM, I don’t just see equations or experiments. I see intersections: the logical precision of science blending with the interpretive art of language. Magistra Kell taught me that I can be a scientist, yes—but also an interpreter of ancient stories, a seeker of human truths.

Because of her, I’m not just pursuing a career in science. I’m considering classics or law as part of my education. She showed me that the world doesn’t have to be divided into compartments, that I can explore the vastness of my curiosity without limits.

When I chase answers in the lab, I’ll remember her lessons on patience and humanity. When I analyze texts in Latin or consider the complexities of legal arguments, I’ll hear her voice, steady and unyielding: Let it speak to you.

Magistra Kell didn’t just teach me Latin. She taught me how to listen—to texts, to others, to myself. And for that, I will always be grateful.