Up Close at the Penn Museum

One of my favorite things about Penn is that we have so many resources and opportunities, whether they be in arts, culture, or STEM, at our fingertips to enhance our classroom educations. Instead of heading to the classroom in Williams Hall for my Art History recitation, the past two Fridays I have taken the slightly longer walk to the Penn Museum, where we had class in the galleries. My TA lead our class through the Ancient Near East galleries, where we looked at cylinder seals, cuneiform tablets, and other amazing artifacts from the royal tombs of ancient Mesopotamia.

The next week, we held class in a collection room, where papyrus scrolls from ancient Egypt had been laid out specifically for our class' close observation. Because of COVID, this was my first experience having a college class outside the classroom, and as a lover of museums in general, it couldn't have been a better one. It was incredible to be able to read about artifacts in the textbook, hear my professor describe them in lecture, and then only a few days later take a ten minute walk and see those same artifacts in person.

Spending time at the museum and seeing the objects up close added to my experience taking an Art History class because it made the art and the civilizations that we had been discussing that much more real, and I think it's awesome that Penn students get to supplement classroom experiences with such cool outside experiences. I will definitely be going back to the museum on my own time, but I hope I'll get to go again for classes as well. 

- Lucy K.