Aug 06, 2013 12:19 PM EDT By Russell Westerholm, UniversityHerald Reporter

The first time Emma Watson enrolled at Brown University in 2009, she was fresh off filming the last of the "Harry Potter" movies and even doubted whether she could ever play a different role, Entertainment Weekly reported.

In the public eye, Watson was Hermione Granger for more than a decade and, now 23 years old, she is heading back to Brown (she left in 2011) only without any doubt that she is a professional actress.

"I wanted to make a conscious adult decision that this was what I wanted to pursue, because that decision was made for me as a nine-year-old," Watson told Entertainment Weekly of her soul-searching post "Harry Potter." "I had no idea what I wanted. I had no idea who I was really. So I wanted to step away and make sure this is what I wanted to pour my life and my energy and my blood, sweat, and tears into."

She enrolled in Brown in 2009 to step away from the film franchise that made her one of the most recognizable young actresses in the business. While she was there, she said even her professors doubted she could continue an acting career.

"It gave me a sense of paralysis and stage fright for a while. And then a professor told me that they didn't think I should act, either," Watson said. "So I was really grappling with it and wasn't feeling good about it."

In the end, it was that fear and doubt that pushed her to get back into acting. That, and the script for "Perks of Being a Wallflower."

"I was really unsure, but then I read the script for The Perks of Being a Wallflower, and falling in love with that and then having such a great experience on that movie kind of sealed the deal for me," Watson said of her decision to return to acting. "I stopped intellectualizing it, and it became much more instinctual."

Initial reports of Watson's departure from Brown stated other students teased her with a number of "Harry Potter" jokes, but Watson shot down those rumors quickly. She said in 2011 that it was "beyond unfair" to accuse her classmates of bullying and that she had never been bullied.

Now, with successful roles in "Wallflower," "the Bling Ring," and "This is the End," Watson will go back to Brown undoubtedly an actress.

"I suddenly wanted to prove them wrong," the young actress said. "It gave me fuel, in a way. I'm not sure why that shift happened."

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