And I’m off

Hi there,

My name is Clea Pearl Harrison, and I’m moving to Hogwarts tomorrow. For the next year of my life, I’m going to be living and studying abroad at Durham University in England. Although Durham University isn’t actually Hogwarts, it basically is. I mean… just look at it.

I’ve dreamed about studying in England ever since I was a little girl. Like many children born in the 90s, my love of England began with my discovery of the Harry Potter series in grade 2, and spiralled out of control from there. In grade 5, I remember reading a book about a young girl at an English boarding school and thinking to myself, “I’m going to do that; that’s going to be me.” Upon finishing the book, I immediately ran to find my parents to tell them all about my new life plan. They were significantly less excited about the idea than I was. For some reason, my parents didn’t really seem to want their ten year-old child heading off to boarding school alone on the other side of the world. Like… what the fuck?! Anyways, heartbroken, I pushed the idea aside and finished elementary school.

Then came middle school and everything started to change. Hormones were flying wild through my body, I actually wanted to be friends with boys, I stopped listening to Avril Lavigne and Hilary Duff, and most importantly, instead of waking up 2 hours early for school to watch cartoons, I started waking up 2 hours early to do my hair and ‘makeup’ (sigh). But amongst all these crazy changes in my life, one thing stayed the same: my desire to study abroad in England. In grade 8, I spent one night obsessively searching up international boarding schools in England. One school caught my eye, and I spent the next few days pouring over the school’s website, reading about it’s history and watching virtual tours. For the first time in my life, I fell in love. I ordered a prospectus. Honestly, the fact that I did that embarrasses me to this day. I actually requested for a school all the way across the world to physically mail me a large informational package. Once it arrived, I read that thing front to back. Twice. I made my parents read it too, but again, they just weren’t that into it. In the end, I didn’t end up going to the school. But I did keep the prospectus for a few years longer.

Once I reached high school, I had more or less dropped the idea of studying in England. By that point, I was able to realize that it wasn’t the right time in my life to study abroad. Instead, I decided to focus my energy on my real life in Canada, rather than my hypothetical life in England. I graduated high school in 2014, and went off to study geography and political science at the University of British Columbia. During my first year, I started to hear some stuff about this program at UBC called Go Global, and decided to look into it more. Instantly, thoughts of studying abroad flooded back into my mind, and in second year, I decided to apply for, and was accepted into, a full-year exchange in the UK. Finally, after years and years of dreaming about studying in England, it’s actually happening and I can’t wait to share my experience.

See you in London.