Life @ Kaplan: My Invite to Hogwarts
For one day only, Turkish student Tugce Bahceci swapped her English classes for a day of spells and wizardry, when the KIC Cambridge College visited the Harry Potter studios. We're all huge fans here at Kaplan, so we asked her to share her experience about becoming a student at Hogwarts for the day!
"My childhood dream was to receive my invite to Hogwarts and to learn magic, cast spells and eventually become a wizard. Finally after 11 years, my dream came true! As soon as I saw the advert on the social program for the “Harry Potter- Warner Brothers Studio Tour” I was the first to sign my name up!
The magic began in the queue, where we saw some pictures of Dursleys and the cupboard that Harry used to live in. After seeing a short video featuring the cast talking about their experiences, we stepped into the Great Hall, and the tour started.
Although there were no flying candles in the ceiling, it was an awesome feeling to be in the Great Hall; I even sat in the places where the Hogwarts students sit in the film.
After the Great Hall, the tour continued with the Interior Sets, which included the Gryffindor Boys’ Dormitory, Gryffindor Common Room, Dumbledor’s Office, Hagrid’s Hut and the Ministry of Magic. All these places felt so familiar to me because I had grown up reading about them and seeing them in the films – it felt a bit like being at home!
I saw some costumes, wigs, wands and famous objects from the movies like Harry’s first Snitch, a Time-Turner, the Philosopher’s Stone and even The Mirror of Erised. Thanks to the magic of green screen technology, I even had the chance to fly! I wore a Gryffindor robe on and toured around the streets of London on a broomstick.
The tour continued with “Creatures”. I can’t imagine how much time it took to make all of the wonderful wigs, masks and models. After visiting the Diagon Alley set, I saw the Hogwarts model. It was breathtakingly beautiful!
The tour ended with a visit to the studio shop. The shop is a very dangerous place for a a Harry Potter fan like myself because there are lots of awesome things to buy like wands, robes or sweets from “Honeydukes”. It was very hard to control my spending!
All in all, it was a very eventful day, but one that I’ll remember for the rest of my life! I'm so glad that I was able to go there as part of my Kaplan Experience!"
For more information about the KIC Cambridge social program, you can visit their Facebook page to see all the photos from previous events and information about upcoming activities.