Malia Obama is officially a Harvard University freshman.
The former first daughter moved into her campus residence on Monday, officially joining Harvard’s class of 2021, PEOPLE confirms. The 19-year-old and her parents, former President Barack Obama and former First Lady Michelle Obama, were seen out in the Harvard Square area on Monday. Harvard’s Opening Days will continue until the start of the fall academic semester on Aug. 30.
Malia graduated from Washington, D.C.’s private Sidwell Friends School last June. She opted to take a gap year before starting at Harvard.
Before committing to the Cambridge, Massachusetts, school, Malia spent time touring multiple private colleges, including Ivy Leagues Princeton, Harvard, Brown and the University of Pennsylvania.
During her gap year, Malia did an internship with the Weinstein Co., a film and television production and distribution company founded by brothers Bob and Harvey Weinstein. She also attended the Sundance Film Festival in January, and traveled in June with her parents and sister to Bali, among other trips.
Though Malia briefly delayed the start of her college years, then-President Barack Obama told PEOPLE in December that his older daughter – and her younger sister Sasha, 16 – were “ready to get out, just out from their parents’ house.”
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“The fact that their parents’ house is the White House may add to it,” he noted. “But Malia’s going off to college. She’s a grown woman.”
The former president added that the White House has a “sentimentality about” it, saying, “It is different for them than for most kids in that when they leave, they won’t be able to come back home. Malia’s spoken about how she regrets the fact that she won’t have that home base in the same way.”
Obama revealed last year the advice he gave his older daughter about higher education. “Be open to new experiences when you go to college,” he said. “Don’t go to college just to duplicate the same experience you had in high school.”
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