School is almost out, and it’s time to take stock and figure out where you will be continuing your education in the fall. This is a very important decision that will greatly influence your life (and indeed, your lifespan), so there are many factors to consider. We have therefore compiled a list of the top institutions of higher education for the aspiring practitioner of magic.
School for Wizards
Location: Roke Island
Academics: Lessons are taught by the Nine Masters. Subjects include Epic Balladry, Wind and Weather, Changing, Herbalism, Illusion, Patterns, Summoning, Ancient Languages, and Naming.
Student Life: Recreational activities include magic boat races, invisible hide and seek, learning all three hundred verses of the Deed of Erreth-Akbe, and dueling illegally with your bitter rival, thus summoning an evil shadow that will scar you for life and seriously cramp your post-grad opportunities.
Tuition: Your true name.
Study Abroad: You too can travel to the Isolate Tower and learn the true name of every drop of water in the sea. It’s just like spending a semester in France, we promise.
Odds of Dying: Low, as long as you don’t try to prove how cool you are by summoning an evil shadow.
Prospects after Graduation: Chase an evil shadow to the far ends of the earth!
Most Protagonistic Alumnus: Archmage Ged
Unseen University
Location: Ankh-Morpork, turnwise side of the Ankh River, hubwards of the Isle of Gods
Academics: Majors include but are not limited to: Inadvisably Applied Magic, Virtual Anthropology, Extreme Horticulture, Morbid Bibliomancy, and Vindictive Astronomy. This is assuming that you can actually find a professor and convince him to show you any magic. Students are expected to conduct independent study in the Library, where the books are kept chained for your safety.
Student Life: Recreational activities include: engaging in absurd archaic non-magical rituals, having your form altered irrevocably, dying, trying to find your professors, recovering from book related injuries, and dying.
Tuition: Be the eighth son of an eighth son and get a wizard to die and bequeath you his staff. Or be the eighth son of a wizard. Which is kind of the same thing, but worse.
Study Abroad: Your professors will spend most of their time abroad.
Odds of Dying: High. Very high.
Prospects After Graduation: If By Some Miracle You Are Still Alive: Become a professor at Unseen University. You might have to kill someone, but it’s totally worth it. Until someone kills you back.
Most Protagonistic Alumni: Archchancellor Mustrum Ridcully, Eskarina Smith, Rincewind
Brakebills College for Magical Pedagogy
Location: Somewhere in upstate New York, USA
Academics: Majors are somewhat slippery and culminate in thesis-like final projects that do not seem to matter all that much. Students are broadly sorted into Disciplines, which include Physical Magic, Nature Magic, Illusion, Healing, and Knowledge. Each discipline may or may not have a private clubhouse.
Student Life: Recreational activities include drinking classy forms of booze, using animal transformation to overcome inhibitions, and pondering the ethics of magic just enough to have interesting conversations but not so much that it stops you from doing any.
Tuition: Everyone gets a scholarship? Maybe? It seems déclassé to talk about it.
Study Abroad: Hope you’ve always wanted to go to Antarctica.
Odds of Dying: Statistically low, but there is a distinct possibility that your hubris will cause one of your classmates to be consumed by a faceless Beast.
Prospects after Graduation: Become the ruler of the magical country from your favorite childhood fantasy novels! Foreswear magic and become an associate management consultant for an accounting firm!
Most Protagonistic Alumni: Quentin Coldwater
The University
Location: Adjacent to Imre, the Commonwealth
Academics: Majors include Sympathy, Artificery, Alchemy, History, Arithmetic, Medicine, Linguistics, Rhetoric, and Naming. Each discipline has a Master who oversees the department and teaches many of the classes. The Archives are an excellent resource for research and study, just try not to get banned your first week.
Student Life: Popular recreational activities include holding grudges, being the best at everything, and drinking in taverns.
Tuition: Individually set for each student pending an interview at the start of the term. Varies greatly depending on financial need, aptitude, and whether you’ve pissed off one of the Masters.
Study Abroad: You’re probably going to have to take a semester off to get kidnapped by pirates, work for a shifty prince, and learn how to be an awesome ninja if you want to keep up with being the best at everything.
Odds of Dying: Low, though you may be disfigured by chemical burns or lose touch with reality and spend the rest of your life talking to inanimate objects in the Underthing.
Prospects after Graduation: Become obsessed with folkloric figures and pursue the truth of their existence doggedly until it destroys everything you love! Or, you know, get a job using the practical skills you have amassed.
Most Protagonitastic Alumnus: The Kingkiller
The Scholomance
Location: Mountains over Lake Hermanstadt, Transylvania
Academics: Majors include Secrets of Nature, Language of Animals, Magic Spells and Charms, Dragon Riding, and Storm Management. All classes are taught by the Devil.
Student Life: Only ten students are admitted at a time. Housing is provided for all students: hope you like caves. Your family will think you died and will probably revile you if you turn up after graduation, so don’t count on having a couch to sleep on while you figure out what to do with your life.
Tuition: Possibly your soul.
Study Abroad: You may get to spend some time in England.
Odds of Dying: Low, but everyone will think you are dead anyway. You may wish you were.
Odds of Undying: High
Prospects after Graduation: One in ten will become the Devil’s Storm Management lackey!
Most Protagonitastic Alumnus: Dracula
Grey School of Wizardry
The Grey School of Wizardry is a school specializing in occult magic, operating primarily online and as a non-profit educational institution in the State of California. It was founded by present headmaster Oberon Zell-Ravenheart, a founder of the Church of All Worlds. Over 600 classes are offered in 16 magical departments. Graduates are certified as Journeyman Wizards, using the traditional title journeyman signifying one who has completed an apprenticeship.
History
Before the school opened, the Grey Council was established in 2002 by Oberon Zell-Ravenheart as an advisory group to determine the curriculum. The Grey Council was composed of some two dozen authors, mystics, magicians and leaders of neopagan communities around the world, including Raymond Buckland, Raven Grimassi, Patricia Telesco, Frederic Lamond, Morning Glory Zell-Ravenheart, Donald Michael Kraig, Katlyn Breene, Robert Lee “Skip” Ellison, Jesse Wolf Hardin, Nicki Scully, Sam Webster, Trina Robbins, Ronald Hutton, Amber K, Ellen Evert Hopman, Luc Sala and Jeff McBride. The Grey Council worked through 2003 to produce a textbook—a grimoire—for the school, the Grimoire for the Apprentice Wizard (2004). This was followed by the Companion for the Apprentice Wizard in 2006.
The Grey School of Wizardry first opened on August 1, 2004. The school’s motto is: Omnia vivunt, omnia inter se conexa (“Everything is alive; everything is interconnected” — Cicero). It is a nonprofit educational institute for children 11–17 years of age, and adults of any age. The name of the school may derive from the colors associated with the wizards in the J. R. R. Tolkien classic Lord of the Rings and, in particular, with the appendix to the name of the protagonist Gandalf (the Grey). It was incorporated as a non-profit educational institution in California on March 14, 2004,and received a 501(c)(3) tax exemption from the Internal Revenue Service on September 27, 2007.
Curriculum
The school provides a seven-year apprenticeship curriculum in wizardry. Faculty and students represent a wide variety of faiths, including Pagan, Christian, Jewish, Buddhist, Hindu, and Muslim.
More than 450 classes are offered in 16 color-coded departments. These are: Wizardry (indigo), Nature Studies (silver), Magickal Practice (gold), Psychic Arts (aqua), Healing (blue), Wortcunning/Herbalism (green), Divination (yellow), Performance Magics (orange), Alchemy & Magickal Sciences (red), Lifeways (pink), Beast Mastery (brown), Cosmology (violet), Mathemagicks (clear), Ceremonial Magic (white), Lore (grey), and Dark Arts (black). Although some classes address mythology and comparative religion, the school’s grimoire (textbook of magic), Companion for the Apprentice Wizard, and the school’s philosophy focus on magic rather than spirituality.
The program was partially inspired by the fictitious “Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry” from the Harry Potter novels by J. K. Rowling. the Grey School hosts four lodges for adults: Flames, Waters, Winds, and Stones, that are associated with the classical elements Fire, Water, Air, and Earth; the school also has one youth lodge, Psyche, which is associated with the fifth element. The Grey School also sponsors clubs, merits, challenges, awards, a monthly school magazine (“Grey Matters”), summer conclaves at the school’s physical campus, and a virtual school on “Second Life” with student-run moots and weekly meetups.
The school offers more than 500 classes in 16 departments and a full apprenticeship program where upon completion apprentices receive a certificate of journeymanship in their chosen major. Course materials and exercises are provided by faculty and guest lecturers. Both the grimoire and the school focus on magick rather than spirituality with a few classes on mythology and comparative religions.
The Grey School’s Magister Program removes the structure and level restrictions of the Apprenticeship program, allowing the student to choose nearly any class from any level of study in the school’s course catalogue.
In October of 2019, the Grey School acquired a physical campus in Whitehall, New York. The nine acres of hill top Conclave Grounds and the “Highspire” Manor building are open to Apprentices and Magisters for physical classes and during the school’s yearly conclaves. Special access by appointment can be given by the provost.
According to neopagan author Isaac Bonewits, “The Grimoire collects in one book a library of wisdom about ceremonial native and Earth-centered magic, Paleo- and Neopagan religions, the obligations of the wise to protect the defenseless, great wizards and witches of the past and present, and more.” Bonewits also asserts that the school presents an opportunity for males who are unsatisfied by the teachings of the modern Wicca movement.
Bothwell School of Witchcraft
Bothwell School of Witchcraft is the UK’s largest magic school role-playing event. Surrounded by the towering walls of a 15th century moated castle, you’ll easily be able to become a part of the school of magic you always dreamed of attending! Take part in magical lessons as a student or professor, explore the expansive grounds, be sorted into one for the four school houses, and make lifelong friendships.
The Houses
Bothwell is proudly home to four school houses that compete for the House Shield, and each embody strong qualities to be found in all witches. The houses at Bothwell School of Witchcraft are named after some of the protectors of the school early in its conception as they defended the castle while it was still a sanctuary for young witches to help fight injustices against their kind.
The Faculty
The playable faculty of Bothwell School of Witchcraft consists of the Head Master, nine Professors, and usually one or two supporting staff, including Assistant Professors, a Head Guardian, or a Janitor, for example. Most professors also function as House Monitors who advise and guide the members of a specific House.
The Lessons
All students get the opportunity to take part in all of the lessons offered by the faculty, much like in a UK secondary school. Whether you’re a first, second, or third year, you’ll experience each class once during the event, as well as getting the opportunity to play the popular magical sport Fireball Dragon, and have downtime to catch up with homework, take part in an after-class club, or get up to mischief with your friends.
College of Wizardry
College of Wizardry is the largest immersive magic school in the world. Study magic and make life-long friendships, at all inclusive overnight stay at a real castle. Go to class, explore secret passageways, adventure onto the castle grounds and face mystical beings. Find out more about the student Houses and Clubs, the Faculty and the lore of Witchards Society.
The Houses
The College of Wizardry is home to five student Houses, competing to win the House Cup. Each embodying strong qualities and values, and most often at odds with each other. Join a magical home and be part of the legacy!
The Faculty
From janitor over professors to Head of School, the faculty reign more or less supreme over the students at Czocha. They guide the aspiring witchards, they give and take away House points, and every graduate has a story about that one professor who gave them detention, or the other one who helped them win the House Cup.
The Paths
Each student chooses a Path — the Path defines which classes you’ll attend and will steer you through a curriculum of magical classes, which are as following
Artificer
Artificers learn analyzing, building, and repairing magical objects and fantastical contraptions. The field of Artificery ranges all the way from classic enchantments to wand making and golem crafting, and Artificers are always striving to create even better tools and trinkets to aid the everyday life of the witchard society. They deal in the realm of brass and crystal, clay and clockwork, transformation and creation.
Most magical objects that witchards use come from professional Artificers, and there’s always plenty of work in both designing and creating new magic items. Some Artificers concentrate on research, some set up their own artifact business or a repair shop.
There are many different methods and principles to Artificery, and different schools of thought are very persistent that their way is the right way. While combining magic with mundane technology has gained some popularity in recent years, there are still many traditional Artificer families who are proud of their old ways and scoff at such modern nonsense.
Artificers study Technomancy, Arithmancy, Magical Theory, Conflux Studies, Runic Magic and Magical Defence.
Curse Breaker
Curse Breakers have an extensive knowledge of how spells, enchantments and hexes work. Got hit by an unfortunate Tripping Jinx? Accidentally touched a cursed amulet and now you can only speak in verse? You’ll need a Curse Breaker. They understand the inner workings of magic, knowing how spells can be altered and deconstructed. Of course, to break a curse you often need to know how it has been created, so most Curse Breakers are also talented Curse Makers.
Curse Breakers are essential in many areas of the witchard society, maintaining wards and other magical defenses, examining and disassembling illegally cursed items, or doing research on how to improve existing enchantments. Some choose more adventurous professions, traveling to forgotten tombs to solve ancient mysteries. An experienced Curse Breaker is sure to have a ton of crazy stories to tell!
Curse Breakers study Runic Magic, Ritual Magic, Arithmancy, Magical Theory, Invocation and Conflux Studies.
Healer
The magical world is not a safe place, and Healers are always needed to patch people up when something goes wrong. Be it a botched spell, lost duel or barely escaping from a rampant magical creature, you always want to have a Healer available. Healers learn to diagnose and treat various magical diseases and injuries and understand the workings of both witchard’s body and mind. While it’s crucial for every Healer to know their potions, they also learn other methods of healing such as rituals and runes.
Almost any company, institute or department can benefit from hiring a skilled Healer. Some of them work in large, conflux-governed magical hospitals, others choose positions in smaller institutions such as schools or even set up their own small clinic. Those talented in Mind Magic can also use their knowledge as counselors, psychologists and therapists.
Healers study Alchemy, Herbology, Beastology, Mind Magic, Ritual Magic and Magical Defence.
Guardian
Guardians study the skills needed to protect the magical society and keep it up and running. They need to understand the laws and history of witchards as well as the principles behind magic itself. They also have the most extensive education in magical combat, both physical and mental. They know the Traditions by heart and are dedicated to upholding them.
It is the dream of many Guardians to join the Guardian Order and do active fieldwork catching rogue necromancers and other criminals, but there are also many other career options. Most administrative and bureaucratic positions benefit from a Guardian skill set, and whenever new laws or treatises are written, Guardians are almost certain to be present. While the Guardian education is not a requirement to become a politician, it certainly does help. As a result, the Guardian class is often a mixture of hotheaded heroes, ready to rush into action, and future diplomats who yearn to understand the fundamentals of the witchard society.
Guardians study Magical Defence, Conflux Studies, Mind Magic, Magical Theory, Beastology and Technomancy.
Cryptozoologist
Cryptozoology is the study of magical nature, ranging from creatures to herbs and beasts to spirits. The students of this path learn how to identify all kinds of living things, what kind of powers and capabilities they possess and how to deal with them. Cryptozoologists know how to converse with treefolk, which berries to pick for your potions, and how to get out of an encounter with fae unharmed.
Career options for a Cryptozoologist vary widely depending on their specialization. Some end up working at farms, parks and sanctuaries, caring for the local fauna or protecting endangered species. Of course, not all creatures are benign and harmless, so often a Cryptozoologist can end up in more of a troubleshooter position, tracking down escaped griffins and even capturing enraged dragons. A cryptozoologist well-versed in magical plants might open a shop selling potion ingredients, and those interested in non-corporeal and extraplanar creatures could find employment as mediums and exorcists.
Cryptozoologists study Beastology, Invocation, Herbology, Alchemy, Mind Magic and Ritual Magic.
Avistrum Academy of Sorcery
Non-magical people were not the only ones to immigrate to the New World beginning in the 16th and 17th centuries. Witches and wizards also sought to improve their lives on a new continent. Many magical families from England, Scotland, and Ireland settled in the North American colonies, especially in New England. However, for several decades they had no schools of magic to educate their children.
After the so-called Salem Witch Trials in 1692, many magical folk grew concerned. While the Trials had not killed any real witches, they realized that their lack of a proper school for magical children left them vulnerable to discovery in their new home. Four in particular who saw the need for an academy were Pyramis Parador, Englebert Enigmus, Luna Lobostro, and Caterina Colubrae.
The four friends, all graduates themselves from Britain’s finest school of witchcraft and wizardry, decided it was time to found a school for North American witches and wizards, in order to teach them to use their powers correctly. Quite a few magical families had taken to teaching their children on their own, thus causing a rapid increase in the number of Dark wizards and witches. The four friends realized what a great danger this was to wizarding society in the New World.
The Avistrum Academy of Sorcery took its first students in the fall of 1697, becoming the first school of magic in the Western Hemisphere. Parador, Enigmus, Lobostro and Colubrae created four houses, one named after each. Today, Avistrum is still the largest and most prestigious magical school in the Americas.
Sadly, old attitudes did not disappear in the New World. Caterina Colubrae, a pureblood wizard with roots stretching far back to her native Russia, began to echo the opinions of many purebloods before her, that only pureblood wizards and witches should be taught magic. She left the new school after a bitter feud with her partners; the final straw was when Pyramis Parador was selected over her to serve as Headmaster after the death of Englebert Enigmus in 1707.
As the American frontier expanded, Avistrum grew larger and larger. Just as they had from the original British colonies, new magic families immigrated to the United States and Canada along with their non-wizard counterparts. Avistrum has taught witches and wizards who hail originally from every part of the globe.
As a bastion against Dark Magic, Avistrum faces its share of threats. Naturally, the school is hidden from detection by non-wizards. However, as an additional measure of security, the Academy actually disapparates between terms, apparating at a different location each time. Sometimes it will be shrouded in the mists of the Appalachian Mountains, at others located at the bottom of Death Valley. Once, the school was even located within the depths of Mt. St. Helens! Students are sent new instructions on how to find the school each term.
Delhi School of Magic
The idea for the school came to magician Raj Kumar. He realised that he could teach this art to people without giving any importance to their family background. India is the originator of Magic in the world, is considered to be a country of enchanters & charmers. Traditional Street Magicians (Madaris), used to perform for the Kings & Queens of India in their Kingdoms.
Mr Raj after establishing himself in the world of magic decided to save the dying ancient traditional art & artists of India. Which is why he established The Delhi School of Magic.
Your Ticket To Hogwarts
At the Delhi School of Magic, they have 4 kinds of courses for you to explore. The Beginners Magic courses, The Professional Magic courses, The Instant Magic tricks and the usage of all Magic props.
All of these courses are taught by some highly qualified senior magicians from India and abroad. While they don’t have a physical premise but they offer a three-month course followed by a nine-month performance tour to all those who enroll as students. So pick your course and whip out those wands and brooms and get ready to cast your spell on your friends and family.
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Sources:
www.tor.com/2015/06/03/planning-for-your-future-the-top-five-colleges-of-magic/
