universities / WizWorld structure

[Steve Vander Ark]

No: HPFGUIDX 24188

--- In HPforGrownups at y..., "Alexandra Y. Kwan" <litalex at y...> wrote:
> 
> Funny you should bring that up...  I know the
> following has probably been asked many times, but
> witches and wizards seem to begin work immediately
> after Hogwarts (or the Continental equivalents),
> right?  Are there any wizarding universities?  Don't
> any of them get Ph.D's?

According to JKR, there are no Wizarding universities or colleges. 
She said this in an interview (don't have the reference handy, but I 
can get it if you want).
 

One way to get something of a handle on the way the Wizarding World 
functions is to compare it not to our world but to the medieval 
world. In many ways, this is a much more accurate comparison. The 
attitudes toward many things--animals, for example--are very 
medieval. When you look at it that way, most of the population 
doesn't require the kind of schooling that we take for granted 
because magic has removed the need for many of those high 
professions. 

Here's the way it all seems to fall together:

Anyone born to wizarding parents is a wizard and has magical power. 
Some have very little, in which case they are squibs, but they all 
have it. That's why the KwikSpell course can work with squibs. The 
key is how much power they have. Up to a certain point, they do not 
have the potential to become "fully qualified wizards," to take the 
phrase from the books. These folks do not attend Hogwarts, they move 
directly from basic schooling in the home or in small communal school 
settings into trades. Examples include Stan Shunpike and Tom the 
Innkeeper. Now to our modern way of thinking, these people are 
getting a raw deal. They have a right to become whatever they want to 
be, etc. But in the Wizarding World, that's not the case, just like 
it wasn't the case in medieval society. And this is logical, too, 
since they wouldn't have the magical power to DO just anything they 
might fancy. So someone like Stan, at age 14 or so, connects himself 
to the Knight Bus outfit, since he's always been keen on that sort of 
thing. He is given some training and assigned to an apprentice role 
aboard the bus, as conductor. He doesn't train to become a "fully 
qualified wizard," but he does learn the magic he needs to do his 
job. Most of the day to day stuff--lighting lamps or making a kettle 
boil--is extremely basic and is quickly mastered. Slightly more 
complicated things like charming your own cheese is picked up from 
books, magazines, the neighbor, things like that. And since Stan is a 
product of that medieval-style culture, this seems perfectly 
equitable to him. He LIKES his position and he enjoys what he does. 

Someone with stronger magical power, however, would travel a 
different path. They would be sent to Hogwarts and work toward 
becoming "fully qualified." This would allow them to become not just 
a Mediwizard (I'm thinking Paramedic here) but a trained healer, like 
Madam Pomfrey. 

It seems to me that the amount of magical power intrinsic to a 
person, while by far the most important factor, is not the only 
criteria for entering Hogwarts. Influence from a patron or a famous 
family enters into the picture. Why else would someone like Crabbe or 
Goyle make it into Hogwarts? This could also have helped Neville, 
whose family is extremely well-liked in Wizard society, however I 
believe that there is a lot more to Neville than we've seen so far, 
and I think that Dumbledore knows that or strongly suspects it.

One important thing to remember as we analyze this is that this is a 
very different culture, with a very different set of priorities. We 
can't expect wizards to have our values or want the same things out 
of life. There is an strong level of pride they they hold in their 
culture and they don't see what Muggles have or do as worth a whole 
lot. In fact, since they don't understand technology at all (they 
need to study to understand a Muggle lifting a heavy object!) they 
aren't going to wish for having all our scientific knowledge or it's 
products.

Steve Vander Ark
The Harry Potter Lexicon
http://www.i2k.com/~svderark/lexicon