Continuing Education: A Wizarding Option?

[catlady_de_los_angeles]

No: HPFGUIDX 38034

--- In HPforGrownups at y..., "tex23236" <jbryson at r...> wrote:
> 
> As for post-Hogwarts education, We only have Tom Riddle's 
> example. He studied with, the very darkest wizards around, 
> at the time. Note the time lines that Dumbledore defeated 
> Grindlewald in Riddle's seventh year, so those dark wizards 
> likely were Gindlewald's old followers.  They were probably 
> in hiding, so he had to seek them out.

I am CERTAIN that the wizarding world has forms of continuing 
education even tho' it doesn't have universities. Of course, one is 
to study on one's own, reading books and doing experiments (which I 
imagine that Tom Riddle did a lot of, before setting off to find Evil 
teachers). And to seek out teachers for an informal version of 
apprenticeship, as you indicate Tom Riddle did. I suspect that there 
isn't a Librarians Guild (and also no Bureaucrats Guild) so that Irma 
Pince learned her trade from informal apprenticeship: she got an 
entry-level job, or just hung out, in a library and learned from the 
librarian there. The same way that Percy is supposed to learn his job 
as a bureaucrat. Probably the same way Charlie learned to be a dragon 
wrangler.

I believe that there are also formal systems of apprenticeship, in 
well-organized guilds -- both practical and academic guilds. (In 
fact, I imagine that the Potions Guild, for example, always has an 
undercurrent of conflict between its practical members, who are 
apothecaries and so, and its academic members, who do research.) 

There might also be some vocational schools, altho' the only one I 
can think of just now, is that I think there are at least two ways to 
become trained and credentialled in medimagic: one is to become an 
apprentice (then journeyman, then master) of the Healers Guild (which 
I is what I think Pomfrey did) and the other is to go to a vocation 
school of medimagic, perhaps associated with St. Mungo's Hospital.

The applicant has to find one Master willing to take himer on as an 
apprentice (recommendations from Hogwarts professors, good scores on 
relevant NEWTs, the Master being friends with the applicant's parents 
might all help). Then learn from a mixture of hands-on assisting the 
master (the main part of vocational apprenticeship) and studying and 
writing essays and doing experiments assigned by the master (a bigger 
part of academic than vocational apprenticeship) plus attending some 
public lectures and demonstrations given by the Guild at the Guild- 
house. The difference beween that and being an undergraduate is 
subtract the whole social part of being an undergraduate: 
apprenticeship is not about meeting people who will be important and 
useful in later life.

The master can certify hiser apprentice as a journeyman, who is 
allowed to be employed in that field (generally only under the 
supervision of a master, but I suppose that some jobs are certified 
by the Guild as simple enough for a journeyman to do them without 
supervision) and can find the same or a different master to supervise 
hiser studies toward becoming a master himerself. The journeyman's 
studies in an academic guild are a bit like grad school (more like 
the years between having finished all the grad school classes and 
finishing the dissertation). Besides putting in a set amount of time 
and passing an examination (set by a Guild committee, all masters), 
the candidate must present a masterpiece: an example of work heesh 
has done that is of the quality expected of a master. In an academic 
guild, that is often a research discovery presented in the form of a 
dissertation. The masterpiece must be approved by a committee of 
guild masters, and then I envision at least the Transfiguration Guild 
requiring its candidates to defend their dissertations (answer 
questions more-or-less about) against all comers in the Guildhouse 
lecture hall for 24 hours straight... I suppose in the Potions Guild, 
the masterpiece, at least for those who intend to own their potion 
shop, is to brew a set of very complicated prescriptions.

The academic guilds may give the title of Doctor as an honor to 
some of their best masters (selected by a committee of Doctors), in 
which case, they may allow only Doctors to be on the committee for 
judging masterpieces, to supervise journeymen working toward Mastery, 
to run for Guild President, Treasurer, etc...