Was not by choice. I think it's got a formal name, "classical education". But EVERYONE had to take it if you when there. There were weirdo's who volunteered for the 4th year of it. Teachers were all good. Hell the high school in general has for the most part amazing teachers with a few exceptions that were meh. But composulary 3 years of speaking a dead language. I would of much more preferred Japanese or Spanish. I ended up taking German for 2 years and that wasn't too bad. I would of been WAY more into it had I been into beer when I learned the language.