MUST-401 Lessons

Welcome back, everyone! I’m glad to see you all here and that I didn’t scare you away with our lesson on education last week. I’m pleased to let you know that midterms have been graded as well and overall the marks were impressive! Nice job everyone! I’m glad to see your hard work is paying off. If you did not achieve the score you were hoping for, please contact me and we’ll see what material we should perhaps look over once again. But for today, we’re moving on to a new topic. After students are finished with their schooling, they move on to the next stage of their lives: their careers!

The Muggle workforce is not very dissimilar to its wizarding counterpart. In fact, you may find many professions that are the same in both worlds - just one is the magical equivalent of the other. Today we are going to look at a handful of magical jobs and compare and contrast them to Muggle jobs that are known to be similar.

Auror

A career path that many of you may be interested in joining after finishing your time here at Hogwarts is becoming an auror. It’s a job that often gets glamorized, as people tend to know of only the explosive auror duels that get shared in our sources of entertainment. While these battles can happen, it is not nearly as common as one would think. Still, aurors do often find themselves called upon to handle dangerous situations, which is enough to scare many people away from the profession. Further, becoming an auror is actually extremely difficult. There are entire years that go by without the Ministry hiring a single one because the standards for aurors are so high.

Muggles have no use for a profession to investigate the Dark Arts, but they do also have groups of people who are highly trained to handle dangerous affairs. Firstly, there is a lower level of career called a police officer, a person within the government that can handle more mundane crimes - assaults, robberies, break-ins, and sometimes the occasional murder. Aurors sometimes handle this type of crime, but often this is the job of other Ministry officials including watchwizards and watchwitches, as well as hitwizards and hitwitches. Watchpeople, hitpeople, and police officers can carry out arrests as needed. 

For higher levels of crime - riots, acts of terrorism, threats to public safety - specialists are called in who are more similar to aurors. The name of these trained professionals varies depending on the country of origin. In the United States, one of these groups is called the FBI (the Federal Bureau of Investigation), and another is called the SWAT (special weapons and tactics) team. In the UK, one group is called the National Crime Agency, and the other is called SFOs (specialist firearms officers). Essentially these Muggle teams are the only ones qualified to handle precarious situations because they have been trained to handle weapons effectively enough to protect citizens. Similarly, aurors are trained on the best forms of combat to defend public safety.

Curse-Breaker

The second career we will discuss today is that of a curse-breaker. A curse-breaker in the magical world is a person who is very knowledgeable about the history and culture of an ancient civilization, which enables them to break ancient spells and uncover hidden relics of a time long past. Within Gringotts and other international wizarding banks, curse-breakers are employed to recover lost gold and treasures. No matter what the curse-breaker is attempting to uncover, they could very well be putting themselves into jeopardy. Ancient curses are nothing to be trifled with as some can be extremely dangerous, so the profession is a very serious one.

While the Muggle equivalent is not quite as dangerous, it is no less serious. Muggles who find themselves interested in history and places like ancient tombs may think that the career of an archaeologist is very interesting. Archaeology is the study of human history, which is usually discovered through excavating historical sites for clues. An archaeologist is a person who is extremely knowledgeable about the culture of a past civilization and will go to ancient sites to find artefacts from this group of people. Another magical career that goes hand in hand with curse-breakers is a magiarchaeologist.  Much like its Muggle counterpart, a magiarchaeologist uncovers the past through excavation and the study of magic in ancient civilizations.  Oftentimes curse-breaking teams have a magiarchaeologist with them, vice versa, or have one that has a strong background in the other. Muggle archaeologists may not have use for curse-breaking, but their job still can involve physical excavation of dig sites, which is dangerous in its own right. Interestingly, almost all Muggle archaeology excavations have already been cleared by curse-breaking teams to ascertain it’s a safe area for non-magical people to ‘discover.’

Healers

Believe it or not, Hogwarts students are not the only ones that get into accidents and get hurt along the way. Universally, humans will be victims of wounds and ailments and need to seek medical attention. Healers and mediwizards in the magical world are people who are trained in healing spells and potions that can cure essentially any problem a patient may have. St Mungo's Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries is the biggest wizarding hospital set up for witches and wizards in England. 

Hospitals exist in the Muggle world, of course, as they experience medical problems as well. It’s unlikely that you’d see a Muggle in the hospital after a fall in Quidditch! However, there are plenty of other reasons that a Muggle may have gotten hurt, including accidents using some sort of technology. A common source of injury is getting into accidents after using an automobile. 

The name for a Muggle healer is doctor, although doctors that are specialists in a certain field may have equally special titles such as surgeon or dentist. These Muggle healers will cure their patients in different ways, as they obviously do not have healing spells and potions available to them. A doctor may use tools such as a stethoscope (to hear the patient’s heartbeat, or other internal sounds) or an X-ray machine (to look at the bones and tissue inside the body). The Muggle medical field is fascinating and we’ll be spending a handful of lessons on it in the coming years!

Herbologist

Herbologists and their Muggle equivalent are actually not as dissimilar as one may think. As you know from taking Herbology, herbologists are people who study plants and fungi, their effects, and their uses. Generally, herbologists do this to discover a plant’s magical properties - this is certainly the case with obvious magical plants such as Mandrakes, Devil’s Snare, and Gillyweed - but herbologists are also interested in mundane plants. 

In the Muggle world, herbologists are referred to as botanists. These are people who study the science of plants. Botany is a branch of biology that, you may remember from last week’s class, is the study of living things. Botanists study mundane plants for many reasons, including to see the effects they have on humans - just like herbologists do. 

Interestingly, present-day botanists are working on a new advancement that may radically alter Muggle future. This new science is usually called GMOs (genetically modified organisms) but the name tends to worry people as it sounds too clinical and scary. Not to worry, GMOs are not something mundane or magical people should be worried about. Genetically modifying plants is something humans have done for centuries, just in different ways. Just as dragon breeders work with dragons to maintain certain species, botanists genetically modify plants to make them bigger and tastier. Botanists are currently investigating whether it is possible to modify plants in a way that makes them more nutritious and perhaps even immune to pests. In the same way, herbologists use specific spells and potions to protect and alter their crop, GMOs are used to modify a plant’s structure to help both the plant and the end-user: humans.

Magizoologist

Magizoology is a branch of magic you may be familiar with already if you’re taking Care of Magical Creatures. A magizoologist is someone that studies magical creatures. It is someone who knows details about magical creatures (such as their diet or habitat) and works hard to keep them safe. Magizoologists also often work in breeding programs that aim to save dying species. I’d recommend speaking with Professors Anne if you have questions about this fascinating field!

Muggles can be zoologists in their own right, where they study mundane animals. As there are many more mundane animals than magical ones, there are various types of Muggle zoologists. There are some that focus exclusively on birds (ornithologists), insects (entomologists), reptiles and amphibians (herpetologists), and many more. These careers are for people who are passionate about a specific kind of animal and want to learn more about them and perhaps protect them if they are endangered in some way.

Muggles also have a place of entertainment called a zoo, which is a place managed by zoologists. Muggle - or magical! - families can go to a zoo and meet loads of mundane animals up close and personally. There are also people called zookeepers who work at the zoo and who are very knowledgeable about the animals and care for them. They will educate zoo patrons about the exhibits as well as answer any questions. I highly recommend going to a zoo if there’s one in your area!

Ministry of Magic

I would be remiss if I didn’t compare two types of government workers: those who work in the magical branch, and those in the Muggle sector. In the UK, the Ministry of Magic is technically a branch of the overall British government. That said, the majority of British government employees do not know of this magical Ministry. While the MoM obviously has departments such as the Department of Magical Accidents and Catastrophes which is not something Muggles have to deal with, the day-to-day life of a MoM employee and an employee in other government branches is fairly similar. For most people, this means meetings, making new laws and regulations and, of course, lots of paperwork.

We will cover the more specific differences between governments in a later lesson, but suffice it to say that for the most part employees of the magical government and mundane government have a similar workload! There are plenty of jobs that have both a magical and nonmagical counterpart: Minister of Magic vs Prime Minister or President…. The Congress/Parliament vs. the various Minsitry departments, and so on.

Potioneer

The last career I want to speak with you about today is that of a potioneer. I wager many of you are surprised that there’s even a Muggle career similar to this one! A potioneer is, of course, someone who creates potions for a living, usually selling their creations as a sort of self-made business. 

While Muggles cannot create potions per se, they can create something similar in a branch of science called chemistry. A person who uses this skill in their profession is called a chemist. Like a potioneer, a chemist will also combine substances in order to create new compounds and mixtures. However, they will combine something called chemicals to accomplish this, as opposed to potion ingredients. Chemists will mix chemicals together in small glass phials, called test tubes, and bottles as opposed to a cauldron. (This process may seem familiar to you if you’ve taken Alchemy!) These final creations may become the basis of medicines for a sick Muggle to take to become better (like a healing potion) or could become a spray given to plants to help them grow stronger (like a herbology potion). The variety of chemical compounds a chemist can make is endless, just like a potioneer’s potions!

And that is our class today, everyone! I hope that this very brief look into Muggle careers showed you some similarities between our world and theirs. You have a quiz today so I do hope you paid attention! Until next time!

Anna Soleil

Sources:

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/content/dam/films/2018/06/29/indiana-idol_trans_NvBQzQNjv4Bq4lBGdeDFzKUeEbEYpW4E4XMK-NyMFVVFzJdJCyg9hyQ.jpeg?imwidth=450

https://image.freepik.com/free-photo/portrait-doctor-holding-stethoscope-physical-examination_23-2148050544.jpg

https://ag.purdue.edu/GMOs/Pages/WhyGMOs.aspx

https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/iAJOTUDNmItYuhcc4UxBqn34CTs=/0x0:5184x3456/1200x800/filters:focal(2178x1314:3006x2142)/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/62318649/shutterstock_119997055.0.jpg

https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/23/2018/09/zoo_SusanChiang_iStock_623-7a615b3.jpg?quality=90&resize=603%2C402