I'd love to go off to college to study photography, art history

The actress Mia Wasikowska, known for her quiet brilliance and introspective grace, once said: “I’d love to go off to college to study photography, art history, humanities.” At first glance, her words seem simple—a wistful musing of someone already successful in her field. Yet within them lies a deep longing, ancient as the human soul: the yearning for knowledge, beauty, and understanding beyond the self. In her gentle tone is the timeless recognition that fame and skill are not the summit of life’s purpose—that the mind, too, must wander and learn, as the artist’s hand must create. Hers is a voice of humility and hunger, of a spirit that seeks the infinite richness of the human experience.

In this declaration, Wasikowska reveals a truth that philosophers and poets have known since antiquity: that art and learning are twin flames that light the same lamp. To study photography, art history, and the humanities is to trace the lineage of perception—to understand not only what the eye sees, but what the heart remembers. Photography captures a single moment; art history captures centuries of human longing. The humanities, meanwhile, explore the vast terrain between soul and civilization, between the question and the answer. Together, they are the disciplines of seeing—not just with the eyes, but with the mind awakened.

The ancients would have called such a desire noble. In Athens, the philosopher Plato spoke of education as a turning of the soul from shadow toward light. The purpose of learning, he said, was not merely to acquire skill but to become more fully human—to see truth, beauty, and goodness in their highest forms. So too, Wasikowska’s yearning is not merely academic; it is spiritual. She does not speak as one seeking credentials, but as one seeking clarity. In her heart stirs the same call that moved the scholars of Alexandria, the painters of Florence, the poets of Kyoto—to understand the patterns that bind art, time, and thought together in the great mosaic of civilization.

We might recall the life of Leonardo da Vinci, who never ceased to learn though he had already surpassed all masters of his age. He dissected the human body to understand its grace, studied the flight of birds to divine motion, and observed the play of light on water as if it were the whisper of God. His genius was not born of ambition, but of curiosity—the sacred fire that Wasikowska’s words rekindle. To wish to study the humanities, after one has already mastered a craft, is to follow Leonardo’s path: to recognize that creation without understanding is incomplete, and that the truest artist is forever a student of wonder.

But Wasikowska’s longing also carries a quiet sorrow—the awareness that modern life, with its rush of success and spectacle, often leaves little room for contemplation. In a world obsessed with achievement, few pause to study for the sake of the soul. The artist becomes a performer, the scholar a servant of productivity. Yet she reminds us that learning is not a duty but a privilege, a returning home to the vastness of the human story. To study art and the humanities is to listen again to the chorus of centuries—to hear the voices of those who loved, dreamed, and sought truth long before us.

Her words thus become a gentle challenge: to never let our crafts or careers consume the deeper quest for wisdom. Whether one is an actor, engineer, or farmer, the study of art, history, and humanity refines the spirit. It teaches empathy through beauty, perspective through time, and humility through the recognition of our shared frailty. Knowledge is not the adornment of the mind; it is its nourishment. And the one who feeds upon it grows not in pride, but in depth.

So let this be the lesson: Never stop seeking knowledge that awakens the heart. Do not confine your education to the tasks that profit you, but seek also the learning that ennobles you. Visit museums and libraries as if they were temples; observe the world through the lens of a poet and the eyes of a philosopher. As Mia Wasikowska reminds us, the desire to learn is itself a form of love—the love of beauty, of wisdom, of humanity. To follow that desire, even in small steps, is to keep the soul alive. And when the artist and the scholar meet within one spirit, creation itself becomes an act of reverence—a dialogue between what has been and what can still be.