Congrats To Emma Watson For This Achievement

It's been over a decade since Emma Watson burst onto the scene and started making an entire generation of girls feel bad (but also really good!) by going through a near-perfect puberty and emerging a graceful and intelligent woman who just won't stop proving how graceful and intelligent she is. Today that has resulted in Emma Watson graduating from Brown. I think it's pretty safe to say that Hermione Jean Granger would be damn proud.

Watson entered Brown University in 2009 (same year I started college, holllaaaa), but took a little time off, as is evidenced by the zillion movies she's made between then and now. Today she walked at Brown's commencement, graduating with a degree in English literature.

Watson's filmography in relation to her time at Brown started with the gap year she took to film The Deathly Hallows. She was stalked by paparazzi during her orientation, which must have been a sucky way to start off college, but hopefully they won't hound her this weekend as she says goodbye to the friends she made at Brown and the place itself — those are important college rituals, so hopefully the legacy of Bling Ring, Noah, and Harry Potter won't haunt it too heavily. We just gotta think back to what Watson said in her interview with Rookie's Tavi Gevinson:

It’s weird — sometimes [success] can be incredibly validating, but sometimes it can be incredibly unnerving and throw your balance off a bit, because you’re trying to reconcile how you feel about yourself with how the rest of the world perceives you.

So let's heed those words, and give Watson the same kind of room most college students get: The room to move past the perceptions that have been cooking around them for so long and chart an adult path for themselves. I for one am certainly excited to see what Watson does next.

Image: Twitter