It’s the rage to compare anything and everything to Harry Potter. Northwestern is an easy target by bearing a sickening and striking resemblance to the mystical magical mayhem of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.
Before your first class, you must first go to Diagon Alley, better known as Bed, Bath & Beyond. Obtain a Northface robe of some kind, an iPod wand and a Nalgene potion bottle.
Upon arriving here at NUgwarts, you are placed by the sorting hat into your respective houses. Gryffindor comprises the most clever and attractive students in the entire school. Well, it is to be expected. They are all aspiring journalists.
Hufflepuff is for those who are, how should I say? Pansies? It is the house no one knows much about. They love everyone, they want to save the world and they don’t make much trouble. They’re here somewhere, but we tend to forget they exist. I hear they study education and social policy, if that’s what they really do.
Ravenclaw is a conglomerate of everyone else. Some are a bit dramatic, but they are friendly nonetheless – unless they study economics.
Slytherin is the most hated house of them all. The students in this house making declarations about how smart they all are and spend their free time making love to their engineering textbooks. Snape is the master of the house, although many students don’t like him because he spends more time practicing dark magic and denying Muggle history.
Every few years the Snape controversy gains life again and students call for his release. However, this Snape will never leave. He has tenure.
Luckily, we’ve got a Dumbledore. (Sorry, Bienen, it’s not you). A reliable father figure. One who is always there for us 24 hours a day, seven days a week. He was out of commission for a while and students’ longed for his return. Let’s head over to the office, or what we here at NUgwart’s call the BK Lounge. He is Burger King, the most fondly remembered faculty member at Northwestern. What will happen when BKdore is gone for good? I have faith, like Harry, that we’ll stay strong.
You best mind the Ministry of Magic. The all-powerful, needlessly bureaucratic student organization, serving what purpose, no one really knows. The figures on the board can be found prancing about in their robes on the third floor of Norris, waving their wands about, spraypainting their names about the school and making left-handed wanders feel at home.
You will recognize the Forbidden Forest by the hideous architecture. It is slightly reminiscent of a terrible 1970s acid trip mixed with a concrete nightmare from hell. Navigating the Forbidden Forest often proves hard. Sometimes it seems as if you’re walking about in circles.
At NUgwarts we spend a lot of time in the Forbidden Forest. Despite all of our differences, we’re really a bunch of Hermiones.
Jasmine Wiggins is a Medill sophomore. She can be reached at [email protected].
