Harry Admitted He Considered University Because Lots Of Pretty Girls Took Art History But Nobody Expected The Future Princess Of Wales To Choose Exactly That Path 😲📚💕
Prince Harry once confessed in his memoir Spare that he briefly considered studying art history at university for one very specific reason: “Lots of pretty girls took that subject.” The remark, delivered with characteristic bluntness, has resurfaced and continues to spark conversation years after the book’s publication. What makes the line linger is not merely its cheekiness, but the way it brushes against the real academic path chosen by his sister-in-law, the Princess of Wales. Kate Middleton graduated from the University of St Andrews with a 2:1 in History of Art, the very discipline Harry once eyed with more interest in its social scene than its scholarly demands.
The contrast is striking. Harry never enrolled at university. After leaving Eton he chose the army, a decision he has repeatedly said he never regretted. His father, then Prince of Wales, did not pressure him toward higher education, recognising that academic study was not in his son’s nature. Harry’s Eton housemaster had already delivered a similar verdict: “You’re not the university type.” King Charles gently agreed that Harry was not the family’s scholar. The young prince considered Bristol, leafed through its prospectus, and briefly imagined an art-history course before deciding the image of himself bent over books for years simply did not fit. The army offered structure, purpose and physical challenge instead.
Kate’s experience could hardly have been more different. She arrived at St Andrews in 2001 and immersed herself in the study of paintings, sculpture and architecture. The degree demanded close looking, careful analysis and the ability to place works of art within broader cultural and historical frameworks. She graduated with a solid 2:1. Her future husband, Prince William, initially enrolled on the same course before switching to Geography, also finishing with a 2:1. The two met in the shared university environment, and their relationship deepened against the backdrop of lectures, essays and the relative freedom of student life far from London’s constant scrutiny.
Harry’s throwaway line about pretty girls therefore lands with an extra layer of irony. The subject he associated with attractive classmates was precisely the one Kate pursued with genuine intellectual commitment. It is easy to read the comment as light-hearted banter, the kind of observation a young man might make when weighing up options. Yet it also reveals something about the different worlds the two brothers and their partners inhabited. Harry’s path led through Sandhurst, Afghanistan and the intense public pressures that followed. Kate’s route took her through tutorials on Renaissance masters and modern movements, equipping her with a visual literacy that has quietly shaped her later royal work in the arts and cultural patronage.
The memoir passage also highlights the broader question of educational choice within the royal family. William followed a conventional university route and emerged with a degree that balanced academic credibility and personal interest. Harry rejected that model and has spoken of the relief he felt in doing so. Meghan Markle, Harry’s wife, brought her own academic credentials: a bachelor’s degree in Theatre and International Studies from Northwestern University. The household the couple later created in California therefore combined military experience, American university training and a deliberate step away from traditional British royal expectations.
What keeps the story compelling is the human texture behind the headlines. A teenage prince leafing through a university brochure and noticing the gender balance of a particular course is an ordinary enough moment. Placing that moment beside the actual academic achievement of the woman who later became Princess of Wales turns it into something richer. Kate did not choose art history because it was fashionable or lightly populated by young women. She chose it, completed it, and has continued to engage with the visual arts throughout her public life. Harry’s candid admission reminds readers that even members of the royal family once stood at ordinary crossroads, weighing options that mixed ambition, self-knowledge and, in his case, a frank appreciation of social possibilities.
The resurfacing of the comment also invites reflection on how public figures are remembered. Harry’s memoir was intended as a raw, unfiltered account of his life. Passages that once read as private asides now circulate as soundbites, stripped of surrounding context. The art-history remark is one such fragment. Read in full, it sits inside a longer discussion of why Harry did not pursue university and why his father supported that decision. Isolated, it becomes a punchline. The fuller picture shows a young man assessing his own strengths and limitations with unusual honesty for someone raised under the weight of dynastic expectation.
Meanwhile the next generation is already navigating similar choices. Prince George is preparing to begin at Eton, the same school that shaped both his father and his uncle. The decision places him on a path that once diverged sharply for William and Harry. Whether George will later consider university, and in what subject, remains years away. Yet the family history already contains a quiet reminder that academic decisions can carry unexpected personal dimensions, from scholarly passion to the simple observation that certain lecture halls seemed particularly well attended by interesting classmates.
Harry’s line continues to amuse and provoke because it is so unguarded. It refuses the polished language of official statements and instead offers a glimpse of a young man thinking aloud. Beside it stands Kate’s actual degree, earned through years of study and still visible in her thoughtful engagement with galleries, exhibitions and the power of images. The two stories do not cancel each other out. They sit side by side, illustrating the different ways members of the same extended family have approached education, self-knowledge and the long process of becoming who they are.